Approach and governance
Scope of reporting
Our online non-financial report 2018/19 is for the year ended 31 March 2019 and covers our wholly-owned global operations. We report in the areas of environmental sustainability, people and communities.
We will publish our 2019/20 non-financial performance report in July 2020.
Key financial information is predominantly located in the Annual Report and Accounts. Background information about National Grid is set out in other areas of the corporate website.
Assuring our reports
We carry out external and internal assurance to:
- ensure the content of our reporting on material non-financial issues and performance is balanced and accurate, and fairly reports our material risks, impacts and performance
- test our awareness of and response to stakeholder issues
- obtain an independent view of developments in our non-financial strategy, management and implementation to determine our ability to deliver corporate-level objectives
- provide feedback to our Board and Executive Committee on the robustness of the governance, strategies, management and actions associated with our material non-financial issues; and,
- ensure we report the issues that our stakeholders are interested in.
We have a formalised approach, which describes the basis for reporting National Grid's non-financial performance data. It focuses on the key principles and practices, describes:
- the scope of the Company's non-financial performance data
- our non-financial performance reporting boundaries and year
- how acquisitions and disposals are treated
- how we decide what non-financial performance data to report
- how our non-financial performance data is verified before publication
- what records should be kept.
Our individual business data owners are responsible for internally verifying the various non-financial reporting data and providing the supporting narrative needed to explain trends or material changes in the data.
Our Corporate Affairs department is responsible for ensuring data and, where applicable, supporting narrative has been internally verified before disclosure and for checking the robustness and completeness of the verification evidence.
Reflecting the significance of climate change to our business, in 2012 for the first time we engaged an independent auditor, WSP Environmental & Energy, to verify our scope 1 and 2 emissions.
WSP completed its seventh annual verification of our GHG data in June 2019. Please refer to the 2018/19 greenhouse gas emissions verification statement for the key findings.
Approach to tax
For 2018/19 our total tax contribution to the UK Exchequer was £1.0bn (2017/18: £0.9bn).
Taxes borne in 2018/19 were £387m, an 15.18% increase on taxes borne in 2017/18 of £336m and primarily due to lower corporation tax payments in the current year. This was primarily due to higher corporate tax payments in the current year.
Our taxes collected were £655m, an increase of 8.62% on 2017/18 of £603m again this was in relation to the sale of our UK Gas Distribution business.
Our 2017/18 total tax contribution of £0.9bn resulted in National Grid being the 25th highest contributor of UK taxes based on the results of the 100 Group’s 2018 Total Tax Contribution Survey (being the most recent available); a position in line with the size of our business and capitalisation relative to other contributors to the survey. In 2016/17 we were the 15th highest contributor. In terms of taxes borne we ranked 23rd in 2017/18; in 2016/17 we were in 9th position. As expected, our ranking fell because of the sale of the UK Gas Distribution business on 31 March 2017, which reduced the overall size of the UK business.
National Grid’s contribution to the UK economy is again broader than just the taxes it pays over to and collects on behalf of HMRC. The 100 Group’s 2018 Total Tax Contribution Survey ranks National Grid in 4th place for UK capital expenditure on fixed assets, falling slightly from 3rd place in 2017. National Grid's economic contribution also supports a significant number of UK jobs in our supply chain.
Defining our priorities
