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Business review

Risks and uncertainties (continued)

Health and safety

The Partnership is committed to going about its business in a way that avoids, so far as is reasonably practicable, causing harm to people or property, and to promoting, through its extensive occupational health service, the wellbeing of its workforce. This commitment underpins our approach to health and safety, with Board level responsibility being carried by the Director of Personnel, supported by specialist technical advisers in safety and occupational health employed within the two divisions. We have set ourselves the on-going target of reducing the causes of incidents through continuous improvements to our risk management process. We cannot expect to eliminate health and safety risk totally from the workplace but our current priority is to ensure that management at all levels know and understand the risks within their areas of responsibility. We have revisited, across the business, the quality and effectiveness of our risk assessment and incident investigation processes and the completeness of our health and safety management systems. During 2009 we enhanced our systems and measures which supported a more proactive approach to meeting our commitments to the safety and well being of our Partners, suppliers and customers.

Business continuity and disaster recovery

Any significant incident, such as a terrorist attack, pandemic flu outbreak, information loss, e-crime, or an event which impacts upon our mainframe systems or key support functions, could severely compromise our ability to trade. We are continuing to refine our Business Continuity capability for all significant business areas.

Compliance statement

This review has been prepared in accordance with section 417 of the Companies Act 2006. The review’s intent is to provide information to Partners, shareholders and the Partnership’s other stakeholders. It should not be relied upon by any other party or for any other purpose.

Where this review contains forward-looking statements, these are made by the Directors in good faith based on the information available to them at the time of their approval of this report. These statements should be treated with caution due to the inherent uncertainties underlying any such forward-looking information.

Other information

Additional financial and non-financial information, including press releases and year end presentations, can be accessed on our website, www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk.