Stakeholder engagement

Authority for the operational management of the Group’s businesses is delegated to the Chief Executive for execution or for further delegation by the Chief Executive to the senior management teams of the businesses.

This is to ensure the effective day-today running and management of the Group. The chief executive of each business within the Group has authority for that business and reports directly to the Chief Executive.

This approach necessarily involves a high degree of delegation of communication with stakeholders to the management of the Group businesses.

Where the directors of the Company have not themselves directly engaged with stakeholders, those stakeholder issues are considered at Board level both through reports to the Board by the Chief Executive or Finance Director and also by the senior management of the Group’s businesses. Senior management are requested, when presenting to the Board on strategy and principal decisions, to ensure that the presentations cover what impact the strategy/principal decision has on the relevant stakeholders and how the views of those stakeholders have been taken into account.

While day-to-day operational decisions are generally made locally, in addition to providing input on the principal decisions and strategy, the Board supports individual businesses by facilitating the sharing of best practice and know-how between the businesses. In the following pages, we set out the key stakeholder groups with whom engagement is fundamental to the Group’s ongoing success.