Assurance

Our Corporate Assurance function has accountability and responsibility for providing internal assurance to the board that:

• Rio Tinto's policies, standards and controls as endorsed by the board are adequately designed and effective for their intended purpose; and that
• These policies, standards and controls are consistently implemented by all Rio Tinto sites on a timely basis and as designed.

The overall objective of the external assurance and verification components is to enhance the transparency and accountability of our performance on social and environmental issues by providing assurance that the sustainable development discussion in the 2007 Annual report and financial statements is relevant, complete and accurate, and that, in particular, our policies and programmes are reflected in implementation activities at operations.

A key part of the external assurance programme is to engage an independent, external provider to prepare a statement that is a fair and accurate summary of the procedures, practices and results within Rio Tinto. In 2007, Ernst and Young took over from Environmental Resources Management (ERM) to provide both the external assurance and data quality verification of our sustainable development reporting.  The change in assurance providers was a result of ERM indicating their desire to provide assistance to Rio Tinto on the design and implementation of programs and systems, which had the potential to compromise ERM's independence.

You can find:

• Ernst & Young's 2007 assurance statement
• ERM 2006 assurance statement
• Our response to the ERM assurance statement 2005