LIKE a TV cop duo, Peter Williams and Rob Symons are cruising the mean streets of South East Wales looking for companies to sign up to their Business In the Community programme (BITC).

Although separated by a couple of decades, Mr Williams and Mr Symons have something in common in the fact that they've emerged from two of South Wales' top training grounds for executive talent.

Mr Williams has a background with Hyder/Welsh Water where he looked after investor relations under Noel Hufton's "school of science".

Mr Symons enjoyed an electronics career with Sir Terry Matthews' Newbridge Networks and its purchasor Alcatel.

His interest in the charitable sector was triggered while working for Sir Terry due to his involvement in an 18-month BITC project.

The charity has typically operated on the margins of society, launching practical schemes to lure disillusioned or discarded people back into the workplace and into meaningful lives.

It was set up in the early 1980s amidst the firebombing, looting and general mayhem which threatened to make Britain's city streets look more like Haiti's or the Lebanon's.

Apart from the New Romantics, the 1980s is best remembered as the "me" decade, spurred on by Mrs Thatcher who claimed that "society doesn't exist".

The limits of Thatcherism's social horizons were soon exposed and one of the biggest responses on a company level was BITC.

Prince Charles was engaged as a patron and since then has he has worked enthusiastically on the charity's behalf: he's attended or presided over about 350 events.

Today, over 70 of the London Stock Exchange's largest 100 companies are members. Of BITC's national membership of 750 firms, 90 are either Wales-based or have representative offices here.

Peter Williams is chief executive of the Wales branch of the network, Rob Symons is BITC's "broker" for Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr.

Mr Williams' challenge is an interesting one. On the upside, as he says, "everybody knows how important regeneration is in Wales."

And he's benefited from an instant membership through the regional outposts of major London plcs such as the banks or supermarkets who've joined BITC in London.

But on the downside Wales is not a land of big companies who can easily cough up the 10,000-plus annual membership fee.

Consequently Mr Williams and his team of nine regional brokers are prospecting amongst small to medium-sized enterprises where the annual fees are more like 3,000.

Over the 20-odd years since its inception, BITC has had plenty of time to think about its offer to companies and as Mr Williams' expresses it, it sounds like a compelling one.

BITC has made itself the British standard bearer in the CSR movement.

Standing for Corporate Social Responsibility this is like the high church version of political correctness.

It's a bit controversial in the sense that although CSR programmes have done fantastic things for disadvantaged groups around the world, critics say they are often used as fig leaves to hide rampant corporate greed and irresponsibility.

Mr Williams said: "We're looking for genuine commitment but we're a coach not a cop. We can audit a company to see where it stands on CSR.

"We look at four areas. In the workplace we target issues such as how effective a company is in dealing with its people and in tackling barriers to employment and diversity.

"In a company's marketplace we look at who it does business with and what kind of commitment to CSR its supply chain partners have.

"In a company's community we look at prevailing issues such as unemployment, affordable housing, youth problems and so on.

"And environmentally we look at the impact a member company is having on its environment either directly through its output, or indirectly through the kind of policies it implements in its workplace and its procurement."

In terms of where a BITC member invests its charitable efforts, Mr Williams said he looked for an integrated approach which made an impact and would inspire others.

"We want to get away from the syndrome of helping the chairman's wife's favourite cause. We want members to make a strategic investment in either their local community or the world at large."

He said the contribution is rarely cash: "It's usually time and it can be designed to also benefit the company by addressing issues it may have such as staff retention problems.

"A mentoring programme in a disadvantaged community can raise the motivation and self-worth of the staff who are leading it as much as the recipients."