KPMG assurance report

KPMG LLP was engaged by Alliance Boots GmbH (‘Alliance Boots’) to provide limited assurance over selected aspects of the Alliance Boots Corporate Social Responsibility Report for the year ended 31 March 2011 (‘the Report’).

This report is solely made to Alliance Boots in accordance with the terms of our engagement.  Our work has been undertaken so that we might state to Alliance Boots those matters we have been engaged to state within this report and for no other purpose.  To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than Alliance Boots for our work, this report, or for the conclusions we have reached.

Responsibilities

The Directors of Alliance Boots GmbH are responsible for preparing the Report and the information and statements within it.  They are responsible for identification of stakeholders and material issues, for defining objectives with respect to sustainability performance, and for establishing and maintaining appropriate performance management and internal control systems from which reported information is derived.

Our responsibility is to express our conclusions in relation to the scope set out below.  

Scope of our assurance engagement

 

The extent of evidence-gathering procedures for a limited assurance engagement is less than for a reasonable assurance engagement, and therefore a lower level of assurance is provided for the data and objectives under the limited assurance scope.

Assurance standards applied

We conducted our work in accordance with ISAE 3000¹, with a team of specialists in auditing environmental information and with experience in similar engagements.  This standard requires that we comply with applicable ethical requirements, including independence requirements, and plan and perform the engagement to obtain limited assurance about whether the data is free from material misstatement.  

Our conclusions are based on the appropriate application of the criteria outlined in the table above.

We conducted our engagement in compliance with the requirements of the IFAC Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants, which requires, among other requirements, that the members of the assurance team (practitioners) as well as the assurance firm (assurance provider) be independent of the assurance client, including not being involved in writing the Report.  The Code also includes detailed requirements for practitioners regarding integrity, objectivity, professional competence and due care, confidentiality and professional behaviour.  KPMG LLP has systems and processes in place to monitor compliance with the Code and to prevent conflicts regarding independence.

¹ International Standard on Assurance Engagements 3000: Assurance engagements other than Audits or reviews of Historical information, issued by the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board

Work performed to reach conclusions

We planned and performed our work to obtain all the evidence, information and explanations that we considered necessary in relation to the above scope.  Our work was limited to the following procedures using a range of evidence-gathering activities which are further explained below:

• Conducting interviews with management and other personnel at Alliance Boots, to understand the systems and controls in place during the year ended 31 March 2011;
  
• An evaluation of the design, existence and operation of the systems and methods used to collect, process and aggregate the selected performance data as well as testing the reliability of underlying data at a risk based selection of the following principal businesses:
  • Boots UK;
  • Alliance Healthcare France; and
  • BCM - UK operations.
    
• Our work therefore from a Group perspective covered between:
  • 63% and 94% of the selected Community data (with the exception of employee time contributions);
  • 56% and 85% of the selected Environment data;
  • 68% and 87% of the selected Workplace data; and
  • 100% of the selected environmental incidents data.  
    
• Reviewing the process performed to calculate the employee time contributions and evaluating as to whether it is in accordance with the relevant internal reporting guidelines;
  
• Checking in the Report the description of the requirements for the achievement of GRI application level B+ under the GRI index against the G3 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines; and
  
• Reviewing the self-declaration by Alliance Boots of GRI application level B+ including their description of the “extent” of reporting.  
  

Conclusions

The following conclusions should be read in conjunction with the work performed and scope of our assurance engagement described above.

• Nothing has come to our attention to suggest that the performance data marked with the symbol * within the Report is not fairly stated, in all material respects in accordance with the relevant internal reporting guidelines for the selected performance data.
  
• Nothing has come to our attention to suggest that the process used to calculate the employee time contributions within the table marked with the symbol ^† within the Report has not been performed, in all material respects in accordance with the relevant internal reporting guidelines.
  
• Nothing has come to our attention to suggest that the remaining community data within the table marked with the symbol within ^† the Report is not fairly stated, in all material respects in accordance with the relevant internal reporting guidelines for the selected performance data.
  
• Nothing has come to our attention to suggest that the self-declaration by Alliance Boots of GRI application level B+ within the Report is not fairly stated, in all material respects in accordance with the G3 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.

 

Richard Pinckard for and on behalf of KPMG LLP
Chartered Accountants
London
21 September 2011

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