Our businesses are organised so that they are close to the markets and customers that they serve.
They are managed as five business segments that bring together common industry expertise, operational capability and market intelligence. Operational decisions are made locally because, in our experience, they are most successful when made by the people who have the best understanding of their markets and who have to implement them. The corporate centre aims to provide a framework in which our business leaders have the freedom and decision-making authority to pursue opportunities with entrepreneurial flair. The centre is small and uses short lines of communication to ensure prompt, incisive and unambiguous decision-making. It seeks to ensure that business activities are appropriately monitored and supported.
Strategy The corporate centre agrees strategy and budgets with the businesses and monitors their performance closely.
The group balance sheet is managed to ensure long-term financial stability, regardless of the state of capital markets, and capital funding is made available to all of our businesses where returns meet or exceed clearly defined criteria. The centre provides selected services where the scale of its operations enables a more cost-effective or efficient delivery, where expertise that might not be available at a business level can be retained by the group, or where the provision of such services would otherwise distract business executives. Such services include investor relations, pensions, insurance, tax and treasury management, where specialist expertise is brought together in one place for the benefit of the group as a whole. The centre also co-ordinates selected value-added capabilities to support the businesses in their local markets such as talent management and development, procurement, and the sharing of best practice in, for example, health and safety or engineering risk management. We operate 

to high ethical standards as an organisation and expect the same of our employees. We encourage an open and honest culture in all our dealings and ensure that our core values are fully implemented throughout the group.

Discussion points 1 How does an understanding of the business structure and strategy help the user of financial statements to interpret the financial health of the company?
2 Which items of non-accounting information in the extracts are most relevant to the potential usefulness of accounting information in the financial statements?