the audit procedures required to identify non-compliance with laws and regulations to enquiry of the directors and other management and the inspection of regulatory and legal correspondence, if any. Material misstatements that arise due to fraud can be harder to detect than those that arise from error as they may involve deliberate concealment or collusion. A further description of our responsibilities is available on the Financial Reporting Council’s website at: https://www.frc.org.uk/ auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part This report is made solely to the company’s members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the company’s members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the company and the company’s members, as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed. of our auditor’s report. Use of our report Stephen Meredith BA FCA DChA Senior Statutory Auditor For and on behalf of Alliotts LLP Chartered Accountants Statutory Auditor, Friary Court, 13-21 High Street, Guildford, Surrey GU1 3DL
company’s financial statements to material misstatement, including obtaining an understanding of how fraud might occur, by: • making enquiries of management as to where they considered there was susceptibility to fraud, their knowledge of actual, suspected and alleged fraud; and • considering the internal controls in place to mitigate risks of fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations. To address the risk of fraud through management bias and override of controls, we: • performed analytical procedures to identify any unusual or unexpected relationships; • tested journal entries to identify unusual transactions; • assessed whether judgements and
non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud, is detailed below: Our approach to identifying and assessing the risks of material misstatement in respect of irregularities, including fraud and non- compliance with laws and regulations, was as follows: • the engagement partner ensured that the engagement team collectively had the appropriate competence, capabilities and skills to identify or recognise non-compliance with applicable laws and regulations; • we identified the laws and regulations applicable to the company through discussions with directors and other management, and from our commercial knowledge and experience of the sector; • we focused on specific laws and regulations which we considered may have a direct material effect on the financial statements or the operations of the company, including the Companies Act 2006, taxation, employment, environmental and health and safety legislation; • we assessed the extent of compliance with the laws and regulations identified above through making enquiries of management
Responsibilities of directors As explained more fully in the directors’ responsibilities statement, the directors are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the directors determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free frommaterial misstatement, whether due to fraud or error. In preparing the financial statements, the directors are responsible for assessing the company’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the directors either intend to liquidate the company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so. Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free frommaterial misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements. Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of
assumptions made in determining the accounting estimates
were indicative of potential bias; and • investigated the rationale
behind significant or unusual transactions.
In response to the risk of irregularities and non- compliance with laws and regulations, we designed procedures which included, but were not limited to: • agreeing financial statement disclosures to underlying supporting documentation; • reading the minutes of meetings of the board of directors; • enquiring of management as to actual and potential litigation and claims; and • reviewing correspondence with HMRC. There are inherent limitations in our audit procedures described above. The more removed that laws and regulations are from financial transactions, the less likely it is that we would become aware of non-compliance. Auditing standards also limit
and inspecting legal correspondence; and
• identified laws and regulations were
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communicated within the audit team regularly and the team remained alert to instances of non- compliance throughout the audit.
We assessed the susceptibility of the
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