Corporate Governance - Accountability and Audit

The Directors are ultimately responsible for the Society’s system of internal control and for reviewing its effectiveness, including any outsourced activities.

This system is designed to manage rather than eliminate the risk of failure to achieve business objectives and can only provide reasonable, not absolute, assurance against material loss or misstatement.

The Directors actively seek to minimise the exposure to unnecessary risks, and in doing so, take into consideration the materiality of the risks to be managed and their cost effectiveness of the relevant aspects of internal control in light of the particular environment in which the Society operates.

The effectiveness of the Society’s system of internal control, including financial, operational and compliance controls and risk management processes, is reviewed by the Audit Committee on behalf of the Board and the Audit Committee has reported on the outcome of its review to the Board.

Control environment
The Society is committed to the highest standards of business ethics and conduct, and seeks to maintain these standards across all of its operations.

The Society regularly reviews its governance manual, confirming the governance structure for the business and the guiding policies for the organisation.

An appropriate organisational structure for planning, executing, controlling and monitoring business operations is in place in order to achieve the Society’s objectives.

The structure is reviewed and updated on a regular basis, taking into account the pressures and conflicting priorities on the Society’s business, to ensure that it provides clear responsibilities and control for key areas.

Separate internal functions have been established for internal audit and change programme management.

The Board receives an overall summary of its control effectiveness based on the risk assessment report and the Corporate Audit report in order that it may sign the Directors’ Certificate attached to the annual return to the FSA.

More information can be found by downloading and reading the Wesleyan's Annual report and Accounts 2006.