The directors are responsible for preparing the Annual Report, the Directors’ Remuneration Report and the parent 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 parent company financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice). The parent company financial statements are required by law to give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the company for that year.
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 consolidated financial statements comply with applicable UK Accounting Standards; and
- prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the company will continue in business.
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 to enable them to ensure that the financial statements and the Directors’ Remuneration Report comply with the Companies Act 1985. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
In addition, the Companies Act 1985 requires directors to provide the company’s auditors with every opportunity to take whatever steps and undertake whatever inspections the auditors consider to be appropriate for the purpose of enabling them to give their audit report. The directors, having made appropriate enquiries, confirm that:
- so far as the director is aware, there is no relevant audit information of which the company’s auditors are unaware; and
- each director has taken all the steps that they ought to have taken as a director in order to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the company’s auditors are aware of that information.
The directors’ responsibilities for publishing the company accounts on the internet are stated in the Statement of directors’ responsibilities.