Additional reporting / Accreditation statement

Overall Accreditation External Commentary
To the management of Man Group plc

We have been asked to review Man Group’s 2009 Corporate Responsibility (CR) Report (the Report) in accordance with the scope of work agreed with Man Group’s management, and described below.

The scope of our work
This is the third year in which The Virtuous Circle has been involved in verification of the company’s CR Report or the data held within the CR section of the website.

For the 2009 Report (which is only web based), our approach entailed five phases, which covered a six month period. Given the relatively compact Man CR team, this enabled much of the initial review and stakeholder interviews to have been undertaken before the year end. These phases were as follows:

  • Phase 1 – Interview key internal and external stakeholders about their views on Man’s CR approach and its CR communications, particularly in the current economic climate. Understanding the extent to which they felt the issues they regard as important for Man Group were effectively addressed.
  • Phase 2 – Discuss the proposed scope and likely content of the CR Report, and as a result, the likely requirements for accrediting the report.
  • Phase 3 – Analyse the content of the CR Report and the data included within it (and on the CR section of the website) in order to review the raw data behind the content. We undertook this work using records available via the company’s intranet or held within the company’s Credit 360 CR database as well as data analysis from individual departments.
  • Phase 4 – Subsequently, review the Report’s text to ensure it reflected the raw data, and to ensure it consisted of reasonable statements that represented accurately the company’s actions.
  • Phase 5 – Complete the internal management commentary and the external accreditation statement for publication (Autumn 2009)

Our approach to this work
In developing our approach, we have been mindful of the key principles of providing assurance identified as part of Accountability’s AA1000 Assurance Standard - Materiality; Completeness; and Responsiveness. We are satisfied that the company considered good practice reporting principles (as used by others in their sector), such as using the Greenhouse Gas protocol as the basis for its emissions reporting, and has produced its report on this basis.

    Our approach was designed to ensure that we would:
  • Focus on the accuracy and reliability of the data
  • Ensure the claims made in the narrative are substantiated
  • Offer opinions on strengths and weaknesses
  • Draw conclusions about the report’s scope (including the extent to which its content could be considered material to internal and external stakeholders) and detail any concerns about aspects of the company’s sustainability performance.
    As part of this approach, we undertook the following actions:
  • We interviewed just under 40% of Man’s Executive Directors and senior managers to understand their overall views on CR within Man. As part of these interviews, we included those managers responsible for aspects covered in the sections of the report to understand the current status of progress against CR objectives and the mechanisms for measuring progress. In addition, we interviewed several of Man’s recent graduate entry employees, representing around 20% of the intake, in order to ascertain their views of Man’s CR activities, and their expectations of it in the light of their being new employees
  • We interviewed shareholders representing around 15% of the equity base, together with a selection of external stakeholders (including voluntary organisations, environmental bodies and institutional customers) to understand their views on Man’s CR activities and to understand any areas which they considered as material and where they considered Man could be more active in CR matters.
  • We assessed the range of data that has been collated as part of the development of the information included within this Report, and reviewed relevant documentation, such as the Credit 360 database, internal spreadsheets, e.g. compliance data, and supporting documentation from third parties (e.g. invoices for energy purchases and the carbon offset programme) to ensure there was consistency with claims made in this Report.
  • We reviewed the narrative and viewed evidence to satisfy ourselves that we were happy with the claims made in the reportThe Virtuous Circle has not been involved in the Man Group CR strategy or the preparation of any of the material in the ReportWe undertook our evaluation of this report to ensure ourselves that:
  • Man Group’s 2009 CR report presents a fair and balanced representation of the progress that the company has made in the period 1st April 2008 to 31st March 2009, and that there are processes in place for identifying and managing CR issues.
  • We accept that because of the absence of a full report in 2007/08 that some retrospective reporting of activities occurring in 2007/08 was necessary for the 2008/2009 reporting.
  • The Report covers the key CR matters raised in our discussions with internal and external stakeholders.
  • The data presented in tables within the Report have been correctly transferred from the relevant company level data records.
  • CR initiatives that commenced in 2008/09 and reported upon in this Report were substantial and of sufficient importance to merit inclusion for comment in this Report.
  • No material information has been withheld
    The limitations of our activity
    The data in the report is collated centrally in London, based on submissions from across Man’s world operations. It is derived from sources such as:
  • Its audited bought ledger
  • Its PeopleSoft Human Resources system
  • Central recording processes (i.e. Health & Safety)
  • The Charitable Trust’s recording donations to charities and other bodies
  • buyingTeam procurement savings
  • Third party suppliers (such as travel agencies) Where possible, we reviewed original source documents and we were able to establish a high level of confidence in the accuracy of the information used in the report, given the ability of the Credit 360 database to store both summary data and documents such as invoices.Where there was data provided by third party suppliers, such as air travel, we have only assessed the completeness of data presented in tables by reviewing the data presented to the central CR team from the individual operations. As such we have not been able to draw conclusions on the data completeness, based on reviewing the original data sources.Man Group’s management has prepared the Report and are responsible for the collection and presentation of information within it. Our responsibility in performing our work is only to Man Group’s management in accordance with the scope of work agreed with them, and not to any other person or organisation.
    Our conclusions
    Our conclusions on quality of the Report, based on our approach described above, are as follows:
  • We are satisfied that Man Group’s 2009 CR report presents a fair and balanced representation of the progress that the company has made in the period 1st April 2008 to 31st March 2009, and that there are processes in place for identifying and managing CR issues.
  • We consider that the key CR issues raised in our review of the views of internal and external stakeholders have been addressed within this Report.
  • We consider that the statements in the claims made by management within the Report are accurate.• We consider that the transfer of relevant data from the consolidated data records into the tables presented in the Report has been carried out accurately
  • We are confident that no material information has been withheld.
    Other observations based on undertaking this work
    There are several observations we would wish to make. These should be considered in the context that Man’s CR programme has shown significant improvements in the three years with which we have been associated with it:
  • The Group has made significant progress in this report, providing further transparency on Man’s key CR issues, and benefits significantly from the investment in Credit 360 to enable an integrated IT system for reporting some CR related performance.
  • In certain areas, such as waste management and procurement, there is a need to extend the CR reporting to cover overseas operations, in addition to those in the UK.
  • There is a need to review how CR is governed across the group, to assist in the embedding of CR across the organisation.
  • For future stakeholder surveys, it would be beneficial to extend the range of internal stakeholders to include a larger number of employees who are not members of senior management, as well as larger numbers of institutional customers.
  • Given the introduction of the Carbon Reduction Commitment in the UK, and the likely mandatory greenhouse gas reporting for Man as a listed company, there is a need to review how environmental matters are managed, and in particular how performance improvements can be achieved by local operations. This will require greater local management involvement and this is an area for improvement. Our conclusions presented above are not affected by these observations.

Our independence
This is the third year that The Virtuous Circle Ltd has provided independent accreditation services in relation to Man Group’s CR reporting. In addition to this work we have provided advice and support to Man’s CR team in their development of submissions for Dow Jones Sustainability Index.Our team has been drawn from our team of Managing Consultants, who work on a range of CR related commissions with a number of significant UK and international businesses.

Tony Hoskins
Melissa Kittermaster
16th October, 2009

The Virtuous Circle, established in 2000, is a specialist management consultancy operating in the fields of CR (including risk management), corporate reporting and reputation. It has a team comprising Managing Consultants supported by Associate Consultants and Strategic Partners and works for leading corporations on an international basis.