Annual Report and Accounts 2007/08

• Business & operating review
• Financial review
• Corporate social responsibility
• Corporate governance
  • Good governance and the Code of Best Practice
  • The Board of Directors
  • Board committees
  • Internal control
  • Appointment of auditors to non-audit engagements
  • Statement of Directors' responsibilities
  • Relations with shareholders
• Board of Directors

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Directors’ report

Corporate governance

Statement of Directors’ responsibilities

The Directors are responsible for preparing the Annual Report, the Remuneration Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

Company law requires the Directors to prepare financial statements for each financial year. Under that law the Directors have prepared the Group and Parent company financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as adopted by the European Union. The financial statements are required by law to give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Company and the Group and of the profit or loss of the Group for that period.

In preparing those financial statements, the Directors are required to:

• select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
• make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
• state that the financial statements comply with IFRS as adopted by the European Union;
• prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis, unless it is inappropriate to presume that the Group will continue in business, in which case there should be supporting assumptions or qualifications as necessary.

The Directors confirm that they have complied with the above requirements in preparing the financial statements.

The Directors are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the Company and the Group and to enable them to ensure that the financial statements and the Remuneration Report comply with the Companies Act 1985 and, as regards the Group financial statements, Article 4 of the IAS Regulation. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Company and the Group and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The Directors are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the Company’s website and legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.