Corporate Governance
Auditor Independence Policy
The company has established a policy in relation to Audit Independence. Implicit in the policy are the principles that the roles of external auditor and other professional advisory roles should be mutually exclusive.
In order to ensure that there is no potential conflict of interest in work being undertaken by the auditors, the auditing firm may only provide audit and audit-related services that, while outside the scope of the statutory audit, are consistent with the role of auditor.
The auditing firm will not provide services that are perceived to be materially in conflict with the role of auditor. These include consulting advice, subcontracting operating activities normally undertaken by management and where the auditor may ultimately be required to express an opinion on its own work.
The auditing firm may be permitted to provide non-audit services that are not perceived to be materially in conflict with the role of auditor, subject to the approval of the Audit and Financial Risk Committee.
In addition to the above, the company has adopted the policy of only appointing Audit firms, which have well developed independence policies, including partner rotation and quality review processes.
The current auditors, KPMG, were appointed in 1993. In accordance with the KPMG partner rotation policy, Mr A King was appointed as the Company's audit partner following completion of the 2001/02 audit.
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