Governance

Although the company, is not required to adopt the Combined Code, the directors acknowledge the importance and value of good corporate governance procedures and accordingly have selected those principles and provisions of the Combined Code that they consider relevant and appropriate to the company given its size, structure and stage of development. An overview of the company's corporate governance procedures is given below.

Board committees

The board has two sub-committees, the audit and the remuneration committees, whose members are the non-executive directors.

The audit committee

The committee is chaired by Mrs S Hewett. The company secretary acts as secretary and the executive directors may attend. The external auditors are invited to attend the meetings and they have direct access to members of the committee. The audit committee may examine any matters relating to the affairs of the company including reviews of the annual and interim accounts, announcements, internal control procedures and accounting policies.

The remuneration committee

The committee is chaired by Mr M Chadwick . The committee reviews the performance of the executive directors, considers and approves all board and senior executive appointments, remuneration and benefits, including share options and services contracts. During the year, members of the remuneration committee took no part in decisions over matters concerning them personally. The Board reviews the level of fees paid to non-executive directors.

As a PLUS traded company, Wellington Market Company is not required to comply with the Directors’ Remuneration Report Regulations 2002.

Going concern

After making due enquiries, the Board has a reasonable expectation that the company and the group has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. For this reason they continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the financial statements.

Internal control

The directors are responsible for the group’s system of internal control, which is designed to provide reasonable, but not absolute, assurance regarding:

the safeguarding of assets against unauthorised use or disposition;
the minimisation of risk of material loss whilst in pursuit of the group’s business objectives; and
the maintenance of proper accounting records and the reliability of financial information within the business or for publication.

As might be expected in a group of this size a key control procedure during the year was the day to day supervision by the executive directors.