Governance, management & compliance
We recognise the need for, and value of, governance, management and compliance, incorporating robust approaches that are at the core of our business operations.
Focus Area
Keep robust governance, management, compliance and stakeholder relationships core to business operations.
Risk and uncertainties are an inherent part of any business, and we manage this through our Risk Assurance Framework.
This Framework is in constant operation to continually manage our business in line with strategic priorities and ensure that we, and our stakeholders, can be positively enhanced by opportunities, and not adversely impacted by threats.
The introduction of a new risk management system enables those who are the subject matter experts on our controls to easily report on the nature and performance of the controls they manage.
In FY23 we introduced a risk specifically around sustainability and being able to meet our commitments in this area. As well as managing and monitoring our environmental and social responsibilities through our robust ESG strategy, we also maintain any further reaching inputs and impacts of these topics through this Framework.
The Role of Governance in ESG
Governance creates the mechanisms to not only keep us honest around progress against our aims, but to also run our business in a way that creates:
- Fairness and inherently ethical conduct
- Empowerment and accountability through appropriate governance, management and compliance approaches
- The ability to maintain an effective strategy
- A culture that is able to avoid risks, but exploit opportunities
In recognising the importance of governance to the credibility of our environmental and social goals, Appendix A details the metrics and methodologies that we currently use to apply rigour to these goals. We are constantly working to improve our governance approach. Within Appendix B, we document the areas where we intend to either develop our current metrics, or begin quantifying and measuring progress within FY24. We have also begun to develop our climate-related disclosures in our Annual Report – see Appendix E for our FY23 disclosure.
Our Governance Structure
In order to provide robust governance around our approach to sustainability, and to ensure it is fully embedded in the business, we have formulated the below structure in FY23:
FY23 Highlights
- Rationalisation of our Delegation of Authorities framework with a simplified approach, and more appropriate decision-making and financial approval levels
- Implemented new risk management software to enhance the day-to-day management of our risk profile
- Defined a new risk around failure to manage our sustainability commitments
- Launched our new Sustainability Committee, which forms part of the wider Board Governance structure
FY24 Next steps
- Improving data collection on our sustainability commitments
- Improving audit propositions
- Developing a Group-wide policy framework to ensure logical structure for Group documentation and all procedural documents are in place for the business to follow