Background
The Legal & General Corporate Social Responsibility Report includes sections on customer policies,our employees, the environment, our suppliers, community initiatives and socially responsible investment. Where relevant we have also included details of how Legal & General America and Legal & General Netherlands address these areas as well as selected data on our other overseas operations.
Group Internal Audit has provided independent verification of the Report as noted below:
Objectives
The objective of this verification is to express an opinion on:
- The reliability of the processes used by Legal & General to identify, collect and report data and supplementary information included within the Corporate Social Responsibility Report.
- The accuracy and completeness of data included in the Report.
Summary of Procedures Performed
In contrast to financial reporting standards, statutory reporting and verification standards do not exist for the review of social and environmental performance. Group Internal Audit has, therefore, applied a methodology consistent with best audit practice in undertaking this verification procedure.
Our review comprised:
- Interviews with senior management within Legal & General and a review of the processes in place to report qualitative data.
- Review and sample testing of data including reference to supporting documentation where appropriate. Reliance was placed on the ISO9001 and ISO14001 certification of certain systems within Legal & General where appropriate.
- Review of the final content of the Report to assess consistency with the overall findings of our work.
Opinion
On the basis of the work performed, we have reached the following opinion:
- Appropriate management systems have been put in place to capture and consolidate Corporate Social Responsibility performance information related to Legal & General’s Groupwide activities; and
- Quantitative data is accurately stated within the Report and the rationale for using estimated figures is recorded where relevant.
Christopher Sparrow,
Group Chief Internal Auditor
April 2007
