Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material 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.
We obtain and update our understanding of the entity, its activities, its control environment, and likely future developments, including in relation to the legal and regulatory framework applicable and how the entity is complying with that framework.
We communicated identified fraud risks throughout the engagement team and remained alert throughout the engagement process for any indications of fraud.
As required by the auditing standards, we identify and assess the risk of material misstatement of financial statements, whether due to fraud or error, in particular revenue recognition and management override of control. We design and perform audit procedures responsive to those risks and obtain audit evidence that is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion. This includes consideration of the risk of acts by the entity that were contrary to applicable laws and regulations, including fraud.
The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below:
Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of 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:
As part of designing our audit, we determined materiality and assessed the risks of material misstatement in the financial statements, including how fraud may occur by enquiring of management of its own consideration of fraud.
In particular, we looked at where management made subjective judgements, for example in respect of significant accounting estimates that involved making assumptions and considering future events that are inherently uncertain. We also considered potential financial or other pressures, opportunity and motivations for fraud. As part of this discussion, we identified the internal controls established to mitigate risks related to fraud or noncompliance with laws and regulations and how management monitor these processes. Appropriate procedures included the review and testing of manual journals and key estimates and judgements made by management.
We gained an understanding of the legal and regulatory framework applicable to the company and the industry in which it operates, drawing on our broad sector experience, and considered the risk of acts by the company that were contrary to these laws and regulations, including fraud.
We focused on laws and regulations that could give rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements.
We made enquiries of management with regards to compliance with the laws and regulations and corroborated any necessary evidence to relevant information, for example, minutes of meetings.
Our tests included agreeing the financial statements disclosures to underlying supporting documentation and enquiries with management.
We did not identify any key audit matters relating to irregularities, including fraud. As in all of our audits, we also addressed the risk of management override of internal controls including testing journals and evaluation whether there was evidence of bias by the directors that represented a risk of material misstatement due to fraud.
A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council's website www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor's report.