Each business is responsible for its own risk assessment and management and is required to report at group level to the Director of Financial Control annually. Our decentralised business model empowers the boards and management of our businesses to identify, evaluate and manage any risks they face as early as possible.
Most of our operations are required to comply with regulations. We require all businesses to implement appropriate levels of risk management to ensure compliance with our group health and safety, and environment policies and our overriding business principles, taking into account business needs and local circumstances.
The Director of Legal Services and Company Secretary has overall responsibility for all CR issues. Our Group Human Resources Director has overall responsibility for safety and environment matters and reports directly to the Chief Executive. He is supported by the Group Safety and Environment Manager, who also works with the Director of Legal Services on compliance issues.
Each business is responsible for regularly assessing its health, safety and environmental risk activities. Managers, operators, contracting companies and specialist staff work together to identify hazards and assess risk. Appropriate operational procedures and controls are put in place and all employees are provided with relevant information, training and supervision to mitigate risks. More detail on how this works in practice is contained in the environment and our people sections.
We expect that any businesses we acquire operate according to our group standards. Detailed safety and environmental assessments by independent specialists form part of our due diligence process, and we subsequently work closely with newly acquired businesses to address any material compliance and governance issues.
Every business within the group has an accountable director and a senior manager responsible for health, safety and environment issues. Each chief executive is required to sign and submit an annual questionnaire which assesses all types of business risk including safety, environment and other CR issues.
Key risks and internal control procedures are reviewed at group level by the board.
The board reviews annually the material financial and non-financial risk facing our businesses and, on a rolling cycle basis, reviews the effectiveness of the risk management process and the resources that our individual businesses devote to them. The principal CR risks currently identified by our businesses and reviewed by the board are given here.
Δ This icon identifies examples of our principles subject to independent assurance under ISAE 3000 by KPMG