Irregularities, including fraud, and 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:
-the Company's own assessment of the risk that irregularities may occur either as a result of fraud or error;
-the results of our enquiries of management about their own identification and assessment of the risks of irregularities;
-any matters we identified having obtained and reviewed the Company's documentation of their policies and procedures relating to:
-identifying, evaluating and complying with laws and regulations and whether they were aware of any instances of non-compliance;
detecting and responding to the risks of fraud and whether they have knowledge of any actual, suspected or alleged fraud; and
the internal controls established to mitigate risks of fraud or non-compliance with laws and regulations; and
-the matters discussed among the audit engagement team regarding how and where fraud might occur in the financial statements and any potential indicators of fraud.
-In addition to the above, our procedures to respond to risks identified included the following:
-reviewing the financial statement disclosures and testing to supporting documentation to assess compliance with provisions of relevant laws and regulations described as having a direct effect on the financial statements;
-enquiring of management, directors concerning actual and potential litigation and claims;
-performing analytical procedures to identify any unusual or unexpected relationships that may indicate risks of material misstatement due to fraud;
-reading minutes of meeting of directors, reviewing internal audit reports and reviewing correspondence with HMRC; and
-in addressing the risk of fraud through management override of controls, testing the appropriateness of journal entries and other adjustments;
-assessing whether the judgements made in making accounting estimates are indicative of a potential bias; and
-evaluating the business rationale of any significant transactions that are unusual or outside the normal course of business.
Because of the inherent limitations of an audit, there is a risk that we will not detect all irregularities, including those leading to a material misstatement in the financial statements or non-compliance with regulation. This risk increases the more that compliance with a law or regulation is removed from the events and transactions reflected in the financial statements, as we will be less likely to become aware of instances of non-compliance. The risk is also greater regarding irregularities occurring due to fraud rather than error, as fraud involves intentional concealment,forgery,collusion,omission or misrepresentation.