Doc re Report and Accounts

The Group has developed business continuity, crisis response, and disaster recovery plans.

The Group performs regular maintenance to minimise the risk of equipment failure.

Finished goods holdings across the operations act as a limited buffer in the event of operational failure.

The Group has the ability to transfer some of its production to alternative sites and could also subcontract some of its tooling to reduce any potential loss in production capacity.

The Group maintains a significant amount of insurance to cover business interruption and damage to property from such incidents.

Independent insurer inspections take
place across all sites to identify and
assess potential hazards and business interruption risks.

The Group's strategic objective is to broaden its customer base wherever possible.

The Group focuses on delivering exceptional customer service and maintains strong relationships with major customers through direct engagement at all levels.

The Group maintains customer service matrices which are continually tracked and monitored with intervention made where required.

The Group closely manages its pricing, rebates, and commercial terms with its customers to ensure that they remain competitive.

The Group continually seeks to innovate and develop its product lines to ensure its products are to the standard our customers expect.

The Group has a formal succession plan in place facilitating staff retention and progression through the Group. This succession plan has been augmented through recent recruitment.

The Group aims to provide competitive remuneration packages and incentive schemes to retain and motivate key personnel.

The Group closely monitors trends in the industry, invests in market research and is an active member of the Construction Products Association. The Group uses Construction Products Association and Euroconstruct forecasts in its budgeting process.

The Group closely manages its demand forecasts and costs through weekly operational review meetings.

The Group's strategy is to have its operations structured so that it has a balanced exposure to the residential, commercial and infrastructure construction sectors so as to reduce the impact of any adverse Government action or policy on any one of the construction sectors.

The Group closely monitors trends in the industry, invests in market research and is an active member of the Construction Products Association.

The Group closely manages its demand forecasts and costs through weekly operational review meetings.

The Group has a formal Health, Safety and Environmental policy, and procedures are in place to monitor compliance with the policy.

The Group performs internal environmental audits and is subjected to external environmental audits on a periodic basis.

The Group performs weekly and monthly reporting on key health, safety and environmental matters which require the attention of the Board.

The Group operates comprehensive
quality assurance systems and procedures at each site.

Wherever required, the Group obtains certifications over its products to the relevant national and European standards including Kitemarks, BBAs, WRCs and WRACs.

The Group maintains product liability insurance to cover third party claims arising from potential product failures or recalls.

The Group contracts with several third-party providers to supply off-site, business continuity arrangements for wholesale or partial recovery of the key servers and applications which are used within the various business units of the Group.
These continuity arrangements are subject to periodic validation and testing.
Some business units of the Group also take advantage of their multi-site operations to provision server and applications recovery between those sites.

There are a range of local, business
unit-specific, back-up processes which
are performed on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

Firewalls are in place to protect the perimeter of the Group's networks and any off-site access to the Group's servers and applications is through secure Virtual Private Network connections. In addition, email and Internet traffic filtering is in place to protect against potential viruses or malware entering the Group's networks. User and server computing devices have anti-virus software installed to protect from potential infection.

The Group continually invests in the maintenance and upgrade of IT infrastructure and information systems.
All upgrades are carefully planned and actively managed by senior personnel to minimise potential business disruption.

Full due diligence is performed
before any acquisition is made.

The Group seeks contractual assurances from the sellers to mitigate against any identified issues or risks.

Formal Board level approvals are required in accordance with the Group's delegation of authority structure for any acquisition activity.  Where appropriate, the Group will pay deferred consideration linked to the ongoing performance of the acquisition.

The progress of any integration is closely monitored at Board and senior management team level.

The Group enters into forward foreign currency exchange rate contracts for the purchase and sale of foreign currencies to manage its exposure to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates primarily in respect of US Dollars and Euros relative to Pounds Sterling. It is not possible for the Group to mitigate foreign currency exchange rate movements which impact the translation of its overseas subsidiaries' results and net assets as all the Group's long-term borrowings are Pounds Sterling denominated. However, with the disposal of the French business, foreign currency risk has been reduced.

Customer credit risk is managed by each business unit subject to the Group's established policy, procedures and controls relating to customer credit risk management. Credit quality of the customer is assessed based on an extensive credit rating scorecard and individual credit limits are defined in accordance with this assessment.

Outstanding customer receivables are regularly monitored and any shipments to major export customers are generally covered by letters of credit or credit insurance.

Where the Group perceives there to be a significant credit exposure it will take out credit insurance or obtain an irrevocable letter of credit prior to any transaction.

Credit risk arising from cash deposits
with banks is managed in accordance
with the Group's established treasury policy, procedures and controls. Investments of surplus funds are made only with banks that have as a minimum a single A-credit rating.

The Group's approach to managing liquidity is to ensure that it will always have sufficient liquidity to meet its liabilities when due, under both normal and stressed conditions, without incurring unacceptable losses or risking damage to the Group's reputation. The successful completion of the refinancing of the RCF has reduced this risk.

To reduce the Group's exposure to future increases in interest rates, the Group has entered into interest rate swaps from variable to fixed interest rates. These will be progressively renewed when necessary to ensure appropriate levels of cover for utilisation of Group lending. 

There is a Group Health and Safety Director (with a team throughout the Group) with clear accountability for health and safety ('H&S'). H&S performance is tracked weekly by all levels of management and investigations performed to uncover cause and key learnings as quickly as possible. If employees have failed to adhere to H&S policies, then they may be subject to disciplinary action. Key messages are constantly reinforced throughout the organisation.

The Group employs experienced procurement specialists to ensure key supplies are secured on the best possible terms (e.g. polymers). In other areas of the business, larger contracts are only negotiated by more senior managers. Significant contracts are also reviewed by Group legal counsel.

Results are subject to regular analytical review by senior management at Group level and appropriate enquiries are made if anomalous results are seen. Balance sheet reviews will be introduced throughout the Group to help uphold the integrity of financial reporting. Financial results are also subject to one external review ('interims') as well as a full external audit by Ernst & Young LLP each year. Internal auditing also conducts reasonable procedures to help prevent material misstatements.

Training is provided to all new relevant employees on Competition Law including those changing roles.

Annual declarations of compliance are undertaken in respect of Competition Law and the Bribery Act.

A Sanctions Compliance Policy is in place and all business in higher risk countries requires approval by the Company Secretary.

An external agency (Reuters) is used to check Sanctions against companies and/or individuals.

Financial performance, including future expectations, is discussed weekly while cash is remitted to the Group treasury team frequently to minimise the impact to the Group of any changes in the Middle East situation.

The Group retains and encourages an open communication policy with all employees including discussions regarding their welfare and wellbeing.

The Group continues to recruit and train staff across all levels of the business, being an 'employer of choice' aiding staff recruitment and retention. All our competitors face the same pressures not putting the Group at a competitive disadvantage.