S172 statement

The directors of the Company, as those of all UK companies, must act in accordance with a set of general duties. These duties are detailed in Section 172 of the UK Companies Act 2006 which is summarised as follows.

A director of a company must act in the way they consider, in good faith, would be most likely to promote the success of the Company for the benefit of its shareholders as a whole and, in so doing have regards (amongst other matters) to:

• The likely consequences of any decision in the long-term;
• The interests of the Company’s employees;
• The need to foster the Company’s business relationships with suppliers, customers and others;
• The impact of the Company’s operations on the community and environment;
• The desirability of the Company maintaining a reputation for high standards of business conduct; and
• The need to act fairly as between shareholders of the Company.

The directors fulfil their duties through ongoing discussion and review of key activities and decisions of the Company and through a governance framework that delegates appropriate day-to-day decision making to management and employees of the Company.

The following paragraphs summarise how the directors fulfil their duties:

Risk management

We provide business-critical services to our customers. It is therefore vital that we effectively identify, evaluate, manage and mitigate the risks we face, and that we continue to evolve our approach to risk management. This is achieved through the management of risk registers and ongoing executive and board level review of key matters affecting the Company.

The board continues to ensure that we strive for exemplary conduct in all our business operations, so that the Group maintains its excellent reputation with both internal and external stakeholders alike.  We have obtained ISO 27001 certification, ensuring best practice is in place across the organisation to manage information security related to people, processes and technology.

The principal risks and uncertainties, and how we manage our risk environment, are set out in the Strategic Report above.

Our people

Our employees are central to the long-term success of the business.  We actively try to retain, find, develop and manage talented people whilst ensuring the business continues to operate efficiently.

We have recently undertaken the upgrading of our employee and HR systems, including providing whistleblower software and a global HRIS system.  We regularly conduct employee satisfaction surveys, and communicate the results with all of our staff, both individually and together as a group sharing our successes and working together to find solutions to challenges.

For further details on our people, please see the Directors' Report.

Business relationships

The strategy of the group prioritises growth, driven by both new customers and, crucially, servicing existing customers.  To do this, we consistently seek to develop and maintain long-term relationships with all our customers.  We value all our suppliers and have strong ongoing relations with key suppliers.  As part of our ongoing commitment to foster strong relationships with our suppliers, we strive to pay all suppliers within their agreed terms of business.

Community and environment

The Group is committed to being an environmentally responsible business. The Group seeks to and encourages its people to engage and interact with the communities around them.  As a Group, we:

• Encourage employees to travel for work only when necessary, promote the UK government’s cycle to work scheme, and provide incentives to acquire electric vehicles – all reducing our carbon footprint;
• Have embraced hybrid working policies that balance remote-working with in-person collaboration;
• Encourage staff to recycle any waste products within our offices; and
• Encourage staff to make use of volunteering opportunities (set up by the business and by our employees)

Shareholders

The board actively engages and communicates with the Company's shareholders, whether they are members of the management team or our external investors.

Key decisions

For the purpose of this statement detailed descriptions of the decisions taken are limited to those of strategic importance.  The board believes that the following decisions taken during the year fall into this category and were made with full consideration of both internal and external stakeholders and with their long-term consequences in mind:

• The decision to acquire Inspect Real Estate Holdings PTY Limited aligns with the Group’s strategic goals and shareholders’ aspirations. For our customers, the acquisition provides enhanced product capability to support their business objectives. The board also recognised the acquisition would present exciting opportunities for employees of both businesses, the communities around them and have a negligible impact on the environment.
• The decision to implement ISO27001 within the UK was consistent with the objectives of maintaining high standards of business conduct and also with mitigating risk within our activities for our shareholders, employees, customers and suppliers. It is considered that the implementation will have a negligible impact on the environment.

The directors take full consideration of the principles outlined inSection 172 of the UK Companies Act 2006, including but not limited to theitems outlined above, in each and every decision made to ensure the bestlong-term outcome for the Group.