Identifying and assessing potential risks arising from irregularities, including fraud

The extent of the procedures undertaken to identify and assess the risks of material misstatement in respect of irregularities, including fraud, included the following:

• We considered the nature of the industry and sector, the control environment, business performance including remuneration policies and the Group’s, including the Parent Company’s, own risk assessment that irregularities might occur as a result of fraud or error. From our sector experience and through discussion with the directors, we obtained an understanding of the legal and regulatory frameworks applicable to the Group focusing on laws and regulations that could reasonably be expected to have a direct material effect on the financial statements, such as provisions of the Companies Act 2006, or those that had a fundamental effect on the operations of the Group.
• We enquired of the directors and management concerning the Group’s and the Parent Company’s policies and procedures relating to:
• identifying, evaluating and complying with the 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 had any knowledge of actual or suspected fraud; and
• the internal controls established to mitigate risks related to fraud or non-compliance with laws and regulations.
• We discussed among the engagement team regarding how and where fraud might occur in the financial statements and any potential indicators of fraud.
• We assessed the susceptibility of the financial statements to material misstatement, including how fraud might occur by evaluating management’s incentives and opportunities for manipulation of the financial statements. This included utilising the spectrum of inherent risk and an evaluation of the risk of management override of controls. We determined that the principal risks were related to posting inappropriate journal entries to reduce costs, creating fictitious transactions to hide losses or to improve financial performance, and management bias in any accounting estimates.

Audit response to risks identified

In respect of the above procedures:

• we corroborated the results of our enquiries through our review of the minutes of the Group’s and the Parent Company’s board meetings and enquiries of management regarding any ongoing legal cases;
• audit procedures performed by the engagement team in connection with the risks identified included:
• Performing audit work over the risk of management override of controls, including testing of journal entries and other adjustments for appropriateness, evaluating the business rationale of significant transactions outside the normal course of business, and reviewing accounting estimates for bias.
• Reviewing financial statement disclosures and testing to supporting documentation to assess compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
• Challenging assumptions and judgements made by management in their significant accounting estimates.

• the Senior Statutory Auditor considered the experience and expertise of the engagement team to ensure that the team had the appropriate competence and capabilities; and
• we communicated relevant laws and regulations and potential fraud risks to all engagement team members and remained alert to any indications of fraud or non-compliance with laws and regulations throughout the audit.

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the Parent 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 Parent 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 Parent Company and the Parent Company’s members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Simon Knibbs MA FCA (Senior Statutory Auditor)
for and on behalf of MHA, Statutory Auditor
London, United Kingdom

21 October 2025

MHA is the trading name of MHA Audit Services LLP, a limited liability partnership in England and Wales (registered number OC455542)

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