governance about cr Virgin Media
>> WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO THIS YEAR
Develop our CR Committee structure including through the introduction of non-executives.
There are essentially two areas of governance that are relevant to our CR profile: the need to observe good corporate governance and the importance of embedding CR across all of our business operations.
As a US-listed company, we have to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other Corporate Governance rules. We have developed business systems and processes that generate the clear accountability and openness in the conduct of our business necessary to satisfy this requirement. This includes things like financial approval bodies, contract governance, policies to ensure that employees act appropriately, and a 'whistle-blowing' mechanism for employees wishing to report any behaviours or activity they regard as inappropriate.
The second area of concern relates to our governance and management of CR more specifically and the question of how we are embedding it in the functioning of our business.
We know that properly embedding CR in our business means that we have to engage, and continue engaging, our senior people directly. There are two key reasons for this:
We've set up a CR Committee that is chaired by our Chief Executive and consists of the Managing Directors from all of the functions of our business. This committee is supported by our Director of Corporate Responsibility and our dedicated CR team. It makes independent decisions and reports on its activities to our Group Executive Committee which, in turn, reports to the Virgin Media Board of Directors.
This year we also intend to introduce non-executives to the Committee to offer additional balance and expertise. We want the governance for CR to be as good as that which we apply to financial and operational matters and we'll be developing the role of this Committee to achieve that.
The Committee keeps a close eye on every aspect of our CR profile and has been actively engaged in developing a risk management approach to CR that encompasses all of the various risks and opportunities that we've described to you in this report. In time, we want this to be more about capitalising on the opportunities we generate when we get things right and where CR gives us a competitive edge.
We've documented all of our risks and opportunities in a CR register that the Committee reviews on a quarterly basis and are closely monitoring how these relate to Group operational risk. We're also ensuring that CR risk management is embedded in the way our business functions are operating, that the right actions are in place to control the risks, and that we're identifying where the priorities lie.
Ultimately, we want to be able to derive better estimates, in financial and business terms, of the impact of CR risk management on overall business performance. This will put us in a stronger position to set specific targets for improvement and increase the sophistication of our CR performance management.
