NATS-Annual-Report-2015

Annual Report and Accounts 2015 | NATS Holdings Limited
Governance 80
Independent auditor’s report to the
members of NATS Holdings Limited
(continued)
Respective responsibilities
of directors and auditor
As explained more fully in the statement of directors’ responsibilities, the directors
are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied
that they give a true and fair view. Our responsibility is to audit and express an opinion
on the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and International
Standards on Auditing (UK and Ireland). Those standards require us to comply with
the Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC’s) Ethical Standards for Auditors.
As a result of a contractual agreement between the company’s shareholders
requiring compliance with certain aspects of the UK Corporate Governance Code, the
directors have included a corporate governance statement relating to the company’s
compliance with the UK Corporate Governance Code, a statement in relation to going
concern and a directors’ remuneration report and have asked us to report on these
statements as if the company were listed.
Scope of the audit of the
financial statements
Our application of
materiality
A description of the scope of an audit of financial statements is provided on the
FRC’s website at www.frc.org.uk/auditscopeukprivate
We apply the concept of materiality both in planning and performing our audit,
and in evaluating the effect of misstatements. For planning, we consider materiality
to be the magnitude by which misstatements, including omissions, could influence
the economic decisions of reasonable users that are taken on the basis of the
financial statements. In order to reduce to an appropriately low level the probability
that any misstatements exceed materiality, we use a lower materiality level,
performance materiality, to determine the extent of testing needed. Importantly,
misstatements below these levels will not necessarily be evaluated as immaterial as
we also take account of the nature of identified misstatements, and the particular
circumstances of their occurrence, when evaluating their effect on the financial
statements as a whole.
The materiality for the group financial statements as a whole was set at £9m. This has
been determined with reference to a benchmark of revenue, of which it represents
1%, which is considered to be one of the principal considerations for members of the
company in assessing the financial performance of the group.
We agreed with the Audit Committee that we would report to the committee
all individual audit differences in excess of £180,000. We also agreed to
report differences below this threshold that, in our view, warranted reporting
on qualitative grounds.
Governance