Independent Auditors’ report to the members of the Scottish Solicitors’ Guarantee Fund
We have audited the financial statements shown on pages 67 to 70.
This report is made solely to the funds members, as a body, in accordance with relevant legal and regulatory requirements. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the funds members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditors’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the fund and the funds members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.
Respective responsibilities of the Committee
and the Auditors
The Committee is responsible for preparing, as described above, the financial statements in accordance with applicable United Kingdom law and accounting standards. Our responsibilities, as independent auditors, are established in the United Kingdom by statute, the Auditing Practices Board and by our professional’s ethical guidance.
We report to you our opinion as to whether the financial statements give a true and fair view and are properly prepared in accordance with relevant legal and regulatory requirements. We also report to you if, in our opinion, the committee have not kept proper accounting records or if we have not received all the information and explanations we require for audit.
Basis of audit opinion
We conducted our audit in accordance with Auditing Standards issued by the Auditing Practices Board. An audit includes an examination, on a test basis, of evidence relevant to the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. It also included an assessment of the significant estimates and judgements made by the Committee in preparation of the financial statements, and of whether the accounting policies are appropriate to the Funds circumstances, consistently applied and adequately disclosed.
We planned and performed our audit so as to obtain all the information and explanations which we considered necessary in order to provide us with sufficient evidence to give reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement, whether caused by fraud or other irregularity or error. In forming our opinion we also evaluated the overall adequacy of the presentation of information in the financial statements.
Opinion
In our opinion the financial statements give a true and fair view of the state of the Scottish Solicitors’ Guarantee Fund affairs as at 31st October 2004 and of its surplus for the year then ended.
| KPMG LLP | Saltire Court |
| Chartered Accountants | 20 Castle Terrace |
| Registered Auditor | Edinburgh EH1 2EG |
| 28th January 2005 |