Corporate Governance
The Board recognises the importance of high standards of corporate governance throughout the Group. The Board is accountable to the Company's shareholders for good governance and this statement sets out how the principles identified in the Combined Code on Corporate Governance ("the Code") issued in July 2003 are applied by the Company. The Board confirms that the Company has complied with all of the Provisions set out in Section 1 of the Combined Code throughout the year, apart from the following:
A.3.1 Lord Stewartby retired from the Board on 10 January 2007, having been a non-Executive Director of the Company for seventeen years. IM Grice was appointed as a non-Executive Director on 24 January 2007 and was considered to be independent on appointment to the Board.
D.1.1 The Chairman and the senior independent Director are available to meet with major shareholders, if requested. However, the Chairman has not discussed governance or strategy with major shareholders nor has the senior independent director met with shareholders during the year.