<SEC-DOCUMENT>0001654954-18-003611.txt : 20180404
<SEC-HEADER>0001654954-18-003611.hdr.sgml : 20180404
<ACCEPTANCE-DATETIME>20180404083533
ACCESSION NUMBER:		0001654954-18-003611
CONFORMED SUBMISSION TYPE:	6-K
PUBLIC DOCUMENT COUNT:		1
CONFORMED PERIOD OF REPORT:	20180404
FILED AS OF DATE:		20180404
DATE AS OF CHANGE:		20180404

FILER:

	COMPANY DATA:	
		COMPANY CONFORMED NAME:			PEARSON PLC
		CENTRAL INDEX KEY:			0000938323
		STANDARD INDUSTRIAL CLASSIFICATION:	BOOKS: PUBLISHING OR PUBLISHING AND PRINTING [2731]
		IRS NUMBER:				000000000
		STATE OF INCORPORATION:			X0
		FISCAL YEAR END:			1231

	FILING VALUES:
		FORM TYPE:		6-K
		SEC ACT:		1934 Act
		SEC FILE NUMBER:	001-16055
		FILM NUMBER:		18735919

	BUSINESS ADDRESS:	
		STREET 1:		80 STRAND
		CITY:			LONDON ENGLAND
		STATE:			X0
		ZIP:			WC2R 0RL
		BUSINESS PHONE:		442070102000

	MAIL ADDRESS:	
		STREET 1:		80 STRAND
		CITY:			LONDON ENGLAND
		STATE:			X0
		ZIP:			WC2R 0RL
</SEC-HEADER>
<DOCUMENT>
<TYPE>6-K
<SEQUENCE>1
<FILENAME>a8201j.htm
<DESCRIPTION>ANNUAL REPORT AND AGM PUBLICATION
<TEXT>
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UNITED STATES<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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Washington, D.C. 20549</font></div>
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FORM 6-K</font></div>
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REPORT OF FOREIGN PRIVATE ISSUER<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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PURSUANT TO RULE 13a-16 OR 15d-16 UNDER<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934</font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">For the
month of <font style="font-weight: bold">April
2018</font></font></div>
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PEARSON plc</font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">(Exact
name of registrant as specified in its charter)<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">N/A<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">(Translation
of registrant's name into English)<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
80 Strand<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
London, England WC2R 0RL</font></div>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font>44-20-7010-2000</font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">(Address
of principal executive office)<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
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<div style="text-align: center; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">Indicate
by check mark whether the Registrant files or will file annual
reports</font></div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">under
cover of Form 20-F or Form 40-F:<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">Form
20-F
X&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;
&#xA0;Form 40-F<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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<div style="text-align: center; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">Indicate
by check mark whether the Registrant by furnishing the
information</font></div>
<div style="text-align: center; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">contained
in this Form is also thereby furnishing the information to
the</font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">Commission
pursuant to Rule 12g3-2(b) under the Securities Exchange Act of
1934<font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#x2028;</font></font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">Yes&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;
&#xA0;No X</font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
PEARSON PLC</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">(the
"Company")</font></div>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">In
accordance with Listing Rule 9.6.1, Pearson plc has today submitted
to the National Storage Mechanism copies of each of the following
documents:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x25CF;&#xA0;
&#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0; Annual Report and Accounts for
the year ended 31 December 2017</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x25CF;&#xA0;
&#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0; The Notice of Annual General
Meeting ("AGM") to be held on 4 May 2018</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px"><font style="font-size: 13px">
The document is available on Pearson's website at</font>
<font style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0000FF; font-size: 13px">https://www.pearson.com/ar2017.html</font><font style="font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font><font style="color: #FF0000">&#xA0;</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px"><font style="font-size: 13px">
The document will shortly be available for inspection on the
National Storage Mechanism website:</font> <font style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0000FF; font-size: 13px">http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/nsm</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100%; height: 2px; background-color: #000000">
<!--line--><br></div>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
IMPORTANT: EXPLANATORY NOTE AND WARNING</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">The
primary purpose of this announcement is to inform the market about
the publication of Pearson plc's Annual Report and Accounts for the
year ended 31 December 2017 (the "2017 Annual Report and
Accounts").</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">The
information below, which is extracted from the 2017 Annual Report
and Accounts, is included solely for the purpose of complying with
DTR 6.3.5 and the requirements it imposes on issuers as to how to
make public annual financial reports. It should be read in
conjunction with Pearson plc's Preliminary Announcement issued on
23 February 2018, which is available on the Company's website
at:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="text-decoration: underline; color: #0000FF; font-size: 13px; font-family: Times New Roman">
https://www.pearson.com/corporate/news/media/news-announcements/2018/02/pearson-2017-results.html</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">Together
these constitute the material required by DTR 6.3.5 to be
communicated to the media in unedited full text through a
Regulatory Information Service. This material is not a substitute
for reading the full 2017 Annual Report and Accounts. Page numbers
and cross-references in the extracted information below refer to
page numbers and cross-references in the 2017 Annual Report and
Accounts.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
RESPONSIBILITY STATEMENT</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
"Each of the directors, whose names and functions are listed on
p64-65 confirms that, to the best of their knowledge:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x25CF;&#xA0;
&#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0; <font style="font-style: italic">The
Group financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance
with IFRSs as adopted by the European Union, give a true and fair
view of the assets, liabilities, financial position and profit of
the Group</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x25CF;&#xA0;
&#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0; <font style="font-style: italic">The
strategic report contained in the annual report includes a fair
review of the development and performance of the business and the
position of the Group and company, together with a description of
the principal risks and uncertainties that it
faces.</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 168px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
This responsibility statement has been approved by the board on 14
March 2018 and signed on its behalf by:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Coram Williams</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Chief financial officer"</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
"Joint ventures and associates</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Amounts advanced to joint ventures and associates during the year
and at the balance sheet date are set out in note 12.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Key management personnel</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Key management personnel are deemed to be the members of the
Pearson Executive (see page 11). It is this committee which had
responsibility for planning, directing and controlling the
activities of the Group in 2017. Key management personnel
compensation is disclosed below:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div><font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 10">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 100%; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 56%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-top: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
All figures in &#xA3;millions</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 22%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-top: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
2017</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 22%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-top: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
2016</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 56%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Short-term employee benefits</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 22%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
12</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 22%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
6</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 56%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Retirement benefits</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 22%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
1</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 22%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
1</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 56%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Share-based payment costs</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 22%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
2</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 22%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
1</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 56%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Total&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 22%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
15</font></div>
</td>
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<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
8</font></div>
</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
There were no other material related party transactions. No
guarantees have been provided to related parties."</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
PRINCIPAL RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
"The board of directors confirms that is has undertaken a robust
assessment throughout 2017 of the principal risks facing the
company, in accordance with provision C.2.1 of the 2016 UK
Corporate Governance Code.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Our principal risks (as of 31 December 2017)</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Listed in the table below (and shown on the adjacent risk map) are
the most significant risks that may affect Pearson's future. A
longer list of company-wide risks, plus emerging risks, was
monitored and reviewed throughout the year. The most material of
these are identified as principal risks. Principal risks are those
which have a higher probability and significant impact on strategy,
reputation or operations, or a financial impact greater than
&#xA3;50m.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
The full impact of the UK's pending departure from the EU (Brexit)
is still unclear, but we remain vigilant to potentially material
risks for Pearson. Work continued throughout 2017 (led by a
Steering Committee chaired by the CFO) to identify and mitigate any
potential impact on</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
(a) our principal risks below, such as treasury, tax or data
privacy, or (b) other areas such as UK-EU supply chain and
workforce mobility, including in the event of a 'no deal' exit
scenario. We continue to believe that Brexit, in whatever form it
takes, will not have a material adverse impact on Pearson as a
whole.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
The following principal risks also relate to the material issues
considered in the 2017</font> <font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
sustainability report: products and services, testing failure,
political and regulatory risk,</font> <font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
data privacy, information security, customer digital experience,
and safety and corporate</font> <font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
security. You can read more in the Sustainability section on
p24-33.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div><font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 10">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 100%; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<tr>
<td colspan="2" style="vertical-align: top; width: 100%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-top: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
STRATEGY AND CHANGE</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 31%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Business transformation and change:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
The pace and scope of our</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
business transformation initiatives increase our execution risk
that</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
benefits may not be fully realised, costs may increase, or that our
business as usual activities may be impacted and do not
perform</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
in line with expectations.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Incorporates 'Data quality and integrity' risk: Unavailability
of</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
timely complete and accurate</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
data limits informed decision-</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
making and increases risk of</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
non-compliance with legal,</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
regulatory and reporting</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
requirements.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
(Increase in impact and probability)</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 69%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 36px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Transformation programme
office</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 36px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Global learning platform (GLP) and
the enabling</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 36px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
programme (TEP) are standing Audit Committee</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 36px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
agenda items. See 'Governance' p76-77</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 36px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Regular updates with Pearson
Executive</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 36px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Executive owned Steering
Committees in place</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 36px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Independent assurance on key
programmes</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
In 2017, we continued to invest in the digital</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
transformation and simplification of the company. The volume and
accelerated pace of change combined with execution
interdependencies as we go into 2018 are keeping this our highest
rated (and slightly increased) risk. We also have capabilities we
need to continue to develop internally to deliver transformation
and change (See Talent risk on p52).</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
The &#xA3;300m 2017-2019 cost efficiency programme remains on track
to achieve its targets. Following the planning phase culminating in
the August 2017 announcement, the programme transitioned to
implementation.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
HR Fusion, part of TEP, successfully went live in the US in June
2017. Significant progress was also made regarding data governance
as our quality focus and scope expanded in 2017 to global data. We
now have a much more top-down view of product data, moving on to
sales, marketing, rights and royalties and fulfilment. We also
started putting in place</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
customer data governance.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans</font>:
Business transformation and change initiatives will continue to
support our strategic goals to accelerate our digital transition in
higher education, to manage the print decline, and to reshape our
portfolio,</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
as outlined by our Chief Executive on p8-10 and</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
covered in more detail under our strategy in action</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
on p41-21.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In 2018, we will continue with the development of the GLP, a
single, cloud-based platform to support learners and our digital
transformation, as well as the next phase of TEP to further
progress the simplification of our business. Both programmes will
continue to be closely monitored by the Audit Committee at each
meeting (you can read more</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
about their oversight of key programmes in the report from the
Chair of the Audit Committee on p76-77).</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Successful execution of all our change programmes in 2018 will
depend on having the right change management skills (see also
Talent risk on p52).</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
The focus on data quality in 2018 will be supporting the TEP North
America implementation. In addition, the new EU data privacy law,
the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which will apply from
May 2018 and spans all our underlying systems, is a
priority.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 31%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Products and services:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Failure to accelerate our shift</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
to digital by developing and</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
delivering (to time and quality) market leading global products and
services that will have the biggest impact on learners and drive
growth; ensuring Pearson offers products to market at the right
price and with a deal structure that remains</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
competitive as well as</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
supports our strategy.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
(Decrease in probability)</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 69%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Global product lifecycle
process</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Portfolio
management</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Audit Committee oversight of
GLP</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
Successfully managing this risk underpins two of our key strategic
priorities - growing our market share through digital
transformation plus investing in structural growth opportunities
(see p14-17).</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
The likelihood of this risk occurring reduced in 2017 due to the
progress we've made towards implementing portfolio management
practices and strategic investment recommendations, as well as on
pricing strategy and governance in US higher education
courseware.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In 2017, we progressed our understanding of the competitive and
structural threats, especially to our courseware business in terms
of general and student buying behaviour and have taken steps to
mitigate these. For example, we are making good progress in
shifting the business from ownership to</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
'pay for use', we reduced the price of a number of eBook rentals
and also launched a print rental programme to give greater
convenience and value to students.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font>
Turning this risk into an opportunity -successfully accelerating
our shift to digital as well as investing in and delivering the
right products and services - is as key to successful business
performance in 2018 as it was in 2017. A new Chief Strategy Officer
joined at the start of 2018 see p63.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
We will continue to improve the US higher education courseware
integrated business strategy, product lifecycle and governance, as
well as pricing strategy. In addition to the development of GLP, we
are investing in other innovations, such as Artificial
Intelligence, to ensure our products stay relevant and to become
more agile in our delivery. We are</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
also prioritising investment in our fastest growing businesses
across Pearson. See p16-17 in Strategy in action.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Market research and analysis activity across Pearson was
centralised into one Global Insights team in January 2018. Their
remit is to develop customer insights to inform portfolio, product,
channel and business strategy.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 31%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Talent:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Failure to attract, retain and</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
develop staff, including adapting to new skill sets required to run
the business.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
(Decrease in probability)</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 69%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Consistent performance, talent and
succession</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;
management processes</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Employee policies including the
Code of Conduct</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
(see p27 in Sustainability)</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Employee engagement forums and
action plans</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Turnover data monitored on a
monthly basis</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Exit interviews conducted and
monitored globally</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
to identify any trends and concerns</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Learning programmes now offered on
a single</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
platform for all staff (Pearson U)</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Revamped external careers website
and talent</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
acquisition approach to improve attraction of</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
digital skills</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Wide range of employee
benefits</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
The likelihood of this risk occurring has reduced due to the
mitigation activities successfully implemented in 2017. However,
talent remains an ongoing priority for the company, with a focus on
building the talent needed to deliver the business strategy for
2020 especially in key areas such as digital and change management
skills.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Work was undertaken to ensure we have clarity on the key
capabilities required to achieve our 2020 goals, using this to
support learning and development, assessment, development and
talent attraction.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Throughout 2017, there was a strong focus on leadership
communication of the Pearson strategy, as well as increased
visibility of the Pearson Executive and leadership
teams.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Employee engagement action plans communicated across Pearson and
the Executive are reporting progress to the Board on a quarterly
basis. Highlights from these plans are listed on p27 in the
Sustainability section.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
An organisational health survey was conducted, and results and
action plan shared in Q4.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Our platform for learning and development was upgraded in 2017,
increasing accessibility to learning and development solutions and
greater flexibility in goal-setting. Academies were also launched
for leadership teams as well as Technology, Product, Marketing and
Finance. These aim to increase both our capabilities and
retention.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font>
Pearson will implement further programmes to improve connection
with the Pearson strategy, and to increase engagement and
organisational health.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In order to build the talent we need to deliver the 2020 business
strategy, there will additional focus on direct sourcing and
construction of targeted talent pools to target skills (digital),
address succession gaps, and increase diversity in leadership
roles. We will also continue to support change activities through
Change Leadership training and handbooks.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In 2018, there will be a stronger focus on development planning
linked to further roll-out of career workshops. We will expand and
upgrade Pearson U learning, launching new Sales Academy and
leadership programmes that support succession planning and increase
retention. We will also further refine the careers website to
increase employee attraction.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
The Pearson Executive will maintain their focus in 2018 on talent
actions for the senior leadership group and succession through
quarterly reviews.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 31%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Political and regulatory risk:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Changes in policy and/or regulations have the
potential</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
to impact business models and/or decisions across all
markets.</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 69%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Board and Executive
oversight</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Government relationship
teams</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">EU referendum Steering
Committee</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
Although there has been no overall change in the risk rating,
significant work has been done to ensure we can more proactively
identify and mitigate political and regulatory risk.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Over the last two years, there has been a specific focus on
leveraging resources across the US and UK to build global
political/regulatory relationships, and an international political
profile in order to understand future international risks
and</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
proactively mitigate them.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In the UK, 2017 was the year that GCSEs began their changeover from
grades A*-G to 9-1 with English and</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Maths. Our focus was on working with government, regulator and
other awarding organisations to demonstrate the professionalism and
solidity of the system, which resulted in a stable set of
results.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In the US, we continued to implement our ten priority state
strategy engaging with new and existing office holders in key
states and worked to shape the state and federal regulatory and
legislative environment in favour of Pearson strengths. This work
focused on Pearson solutions</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
to affordability and access with stakeholders in Congress, the
Administration and priority state capitals.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
The full impact of the UK's pending departure from the EU is still
unclear, but we remain vigilant to potentially material risks for
Pearson. Work continued throughout 2017 (led by a Steering
Committee chaired by the CFO) to identify and</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
mitigate any potential impacts on our principal risks below, such
as treasury, tax or data privacy, or on other areas such as UK-EU
supply chain and workforce mobility, including in the event of a
'no deal' exit scenario. We continue to believe that Brexit, in
whatever form it takes, will not have a material adverse impact on
Pearson.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font>
Pearson will continue to position itself as a leader in the
education space, an innovator in higher education and establish the
company as a key engine in workforce development and economic
growth. We are also driving opportunities to engage directly with
other businesses.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In the UK, there is ongoing concern about the amount of testing
(and the sheer difficulty of the new tests) in primary schools. As
a test administrator, we are mitigating this through a stakeholder
outreach programme on assessment.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In addition:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">The new 9-1 GCSEs will be awarded
in almost</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
all subjects</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Technical education: as the
government becomes</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
more clear about the role of T Levels we will need</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
ongoing government relations, media and thought</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
leadership work.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Across our educational markets in 2018, we believe the trend for
more intrusive and voluminous regulation in our sector will
continue. We will continue our work from 2016 and 2017 to mitigate
this.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
We will continue to assess the potential impacts of the UK's
decision to leave the EU as the model that will replace our
membership becomes clearer.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td colspan="2" style="vertical-align: top; width: 100%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
OPERATIONAL</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 31%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Testing failure:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Failure to deliver tests and</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
assessments and other related contractual requirements
because</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
of operational or technology</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
issues, resulting in negative</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
publicity impacting our brand and reputation.</font></div>
</td>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
We seek to minimise the risk of a breakdown in our student marking
systems with the use of:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Robust quality assurance
procedures and controls</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Oversight of contract performance
Investment in technology, project management and skills development
of our people, including software security controls, system
monitoring, pre- deployment testing, change controls and the use of
root cause analysis procedures to learn from incidents and prevent
recurrence</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Use of Amazon Web Services (AWS)
in Clinical and Schools</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">IBM counter-fraud
tool.</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
Pearson is an education content, assessment and related services
company and, as such, managing this risk remains a
priority.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In the US, the majority of student testing is now conducted via
AWS, resulting in improved availability and stability.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In the UK, we successfully delivered the UK summer</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
exam series in 2017 to a high standard of quality.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font> The
drive to continue improvements to availability and stability of
testing systems continues. The migration and retirement of legacy
systems in use will continue.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Given the high stakes nature of the UK testing business, there
remains a risk of breaches of security either as a result of error
or of a malicious nature. We are reviewing what additional measures
we can put in place for 2018 to further mitigate against potential
question paper security breaches.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
The plan to upgrade Pearson's bespoke online marking system - ePEN
- in the UK will continue throughout 2018 with full implementation
due by the end of 2019, taking into account the complexity of our
systems as well as external marking contract
obligations.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Clinical's Q-global will be moving to AWS in Q1 of 2018. Additional
technology stack updates will be implemented during 2018 to address
2017 issues.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Health and safety:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Failure to adequately protect the health, safety and wellbeing of
our employees, learners and other stakeholders from harm could
adversely impact our reputation.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
This risk previously incorporated Corporate security which is now
part</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
of risk 9 'Corporate security and business
resilience'.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
(Decrease in probability)</font></div>
</td>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Global health and safety (H&amp;S)
team</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Global policy and
standards</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Global assurance and incident
reporting system</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Audit
programme</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Regional
training</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
The likelihood of this risk occurring has decreased as a result of
the outcomes of the following:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Overall implementation status of
Pearson's H&amp;S</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
minimum standards continues to improve globally</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">The 2017 global H&amp;S audit
programme was</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
completed across a wide range of our locations</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Our global H&amp;S coordinator
role has been</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
formalised with a new terms of reference</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">The global H&amp;S team became a
registered centre</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
to teach the globally recognised Institution of</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), Managing</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Safely course</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">A completely revised global
H&amp;S Policy (with</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
improved governance and responsibilities) and</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
standards have been developed, which now</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
include good practice goals, recognising the</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
H&amp;S maturity in many of our key markets</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Good progress was made across
our</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
15-17 H&amp;S Strategy.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
2018 outlook and plans:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Implement the new global H&amp;S
Policy and</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
standards and continue to improve the application of our H&amp;S
standards</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Refine and Implement a new 18-20
H&amp;S Strategy</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Deliver the IOSH Managing Safely
course to our</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
global H&amp;S coordinators</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Review our H&amp;S systems to
ensure they continually evolve to reflect our changing
business</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Enhance our global assurance
programme to not</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
only provide risk-based auditing of key locations,</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
but to also include advisory reviews and focused</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
risk-based H&amp;S Projects</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Continue to evolve our key risk
reduction programmes covering:</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
- Ergonomics</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
- Occupational Road Risk</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
- Occupational health risk management</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
and wellbeing.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Safeguarding:</font></div>
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<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Failure to adequately protect</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
children and learners, particularly in our direct delivery
businesses.</font></div>
</td>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Safeguarding
policy</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Internal procedures and
controls</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Staff Code of
Conduct</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Third-party risk management
policy</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Safeguarding Steering
Committee</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Local safeguarding
coordinators</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
We continue to view safeguarding as a fundamental obligation to our
learners and a high priority. Although the risk has been reduced
due to our disposal of the majority of our direct delivery
businesses, we are exposed to greater online risk as we move to
more digital services. There is never a zero risk of a safeguarding
incident and organisations should always challenge themselves and
look to improve their practice. Hence the overall risk remains the
same.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
An exercise was conducted to test the response of selected
businesses to an online safeguarding issue regarding a member of
staff, the results of which were used to further refine training
and awareness, ready for implementation in 2018.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
A sexual harassment policy for our further education business has
been developed and currently training is being produced to support
its implementation in Q2 2018.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font> We
will continue to develop and question our practices around
safeguarding in 2018, with a focus on ongoing training and
awareness across the business, especially with regard to online
safeguarding.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
We will also further refine our safeguarding metrics and the system
used for reporting, as well as developing and implementing a system
for external validation of our safeguarding practice.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Customer digital experience:</font></div>
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<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Challenges with reliability and availability of customer
&#xA0;facing systems could result in incidents of poor customer
digital experience and impact our customer service
responsiveness.</font></div>
</td>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Real-time monitoring of systems
(for service</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
disruptions) and reporting of operational</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
performance used to identify issues</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Project management disciplines in
place to</font></font></div>
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<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
ensure enhancements and new products</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
meet required standards</font></div>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px"><font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-size: 13px">
Outcome of 2017 activities:</font><font style="font-family: Times New Roman">&#xA0;</font><font style="font-style: italic; font-size: 13px">Managing this risk is
critical to achieving our</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
strategic goal of accelerating our shift to digital products and
services, and, crucially, becoming a trusted partner. Therefore
this risk remains high, despite the significant improvements in
2017 to our product stability and execution.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Mitigations were put in place to prevent a recurrence of the 2016
back-to-school (BTS) issues experienced by customers. BTS stability
in the second half of 2017 was significantly improved, resulting in
only a few minor incidents and the highest availability levels seen
in the last three years.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Further investment was made in 2017 in our global learning platform
(GLP). You can read more on this and how it underpins our strategy
and the learning experience in 'Our strategy in action' section on
p14-15.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Customer support also improved response times for incoming calls
and improved outgoing customer communications during the recent
outages.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font> In
2018, there will be a continued focus on the performance, stability
and usability of all product platforms as well as customer service
quality and responsiveness.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Our GLP development, critical to our digital transformation
strategy, will continue in 2018, with the first pilots due to go
live. This platform will allow us to innovate faster as well as
better support our learners.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Corporate security and business resilience:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Corporate security: Failure to</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
ensure security for our staff,</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
learners, assets and reputation, due to increasing numbers of and
variety of local and global threats.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Business resilience: Failure to plan for or prevent incidents at
any of our locations. Incident</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
management and technology</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
disaster recovery (DR) plans may not be comprehensive across the
whole Group.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Risk definition has changed from 'business continuity' in 2016 and
now incorporates corporate security, previously reported as part of
risk 6 'Health and safety'.</font></div>
</td>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Security and resilience
policies</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Security minimum protection
standards</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Incident management
process</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Resilience governance Steering
Committee</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Incident management and DR
teams</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Global notification and incident
reporting tools</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">ISO audit
programme</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">PQS &amp; VUE - ISO 22301
accredited</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
There were an increased number of incidents in 2017, which
fortunately did not impact Pearson directly.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Continued work across the 'Top 40'
locations for planning, testing and response</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Increased collaboration across the
organisation, improving understanding of current and future risks,
particularly regarding incident response and DR
planning</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Training of global incident
management teams for</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;
different response levels</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">A mass notification system was
deployed in the UK and will be further deployed globally during
2018 in order to better communicate with our staff and confirm
their safety during an incident</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">We strengthened our travel
security programme, including greater support provision for higher
risk trips</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">In physical security, the security
policy and global property guidelines were released in early
2017,and contain advice and direction for all projects involving
the build, refurbishment and disposal of properties. Security
reviews in specific locations resulted in a reduction of risks and
therefore improvements for staff and learners.</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font> In
2018, we will:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Continue to drive security as a
proactive rather than reactive activity, with ongoing physical and
travel security reviews</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Refine the incident response model
towards a broader regional/geographic response</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Continue work on the sustainable
and data specific roll-out of the Everbridge mass notification
system</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Mandate travel security training
for travel to high risk countries (due for deployment in
February)</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Work to refine DR planning for any
legacy systems and applications, as well as our support of the GLP,
TEP and the &#xA3;300m 2017-2019 cost efficiency
programmes</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Grow our knowledge around
cloud-based technologies and implement future digital
resilience.</font></font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
FINANCIAL</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Tax:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Legislative change caused by the OECD Base Erosion and Profit
Shifting initiative, the UK exit from the EU, other tax reform or
domestic government initiatives, potentially in response to
the</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
ongoing EU anti-tax abuse</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
activities, results in a higher</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
effective tax rate, double</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
taxation and/or negative</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
reputational impact.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
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<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
(Increase in impact)</font></div>
</td>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Our tax strategy reflects our business strategy and the locations
and financing needs of our operations.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In common with many companies, we seek to manage our tax affairs to
protect value for our shareholders, in line with our broader
fiduciary duties. We do not seek to avoid tax by the use of 'tax
havens' or by transactions that we would not</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
fully disclose to a tax authority. We are guided by our taxation
principles, which include complying with all relevant laws,
including claiming available tax incentives and exemptions that are
available to all market participants.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Oversight of the tax strategy is within the remit of the Audit
Committee, which receives a report and risk deep dive on this topic
at least once a year (see p78 for details). The CFO is responsible
for tax strategy; the conduct of our tax affairs and the management
of tax risk are delegated to a global team of tax
professionals.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
This risk increased in 2017 due to the US tax reform changes
legislated in December and the announcement in November of the
European Commission opening decision on the United Kingdom
Controlled Foreign Companies exemption [see note 34, contingent
liabilities on p175).</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In August the Audit Committee received an update on our tax
strategy and approved our first tax report which was published in
September. A further update was given to the Audit Committee and
Board in December mainly focusing on the impact of US tax
reform.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
US tax reform is not expected to have a material impact on our
effective tax rate, however we continue to work through the detail
and assess whether any changes to our strategy</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
are appropriate.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
The outcome of Brexit remains insufficiently clear to assess any
impact on tax but we continue to monitor.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font> We
will continue to assess (and implement mitigation plans if
required) US legislation changes as well as monitoring potential
tax law changes globally, along with Brexit implications and the
State Aid situation.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
2018 will see the publication of our second tax
report.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Media and public scrutiny on tax issues will continue to be
actively monitored by group tax and corporate affairs.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
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<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Treasury:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Failure to manage treasury</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
financial risks e.g. debt</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
repayments, key corporate</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
ratios, counterparty risk,</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
rising interest rates and</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
transactional FX exposure.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
(Decrease in impact and probability)</font></div>
</td>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Treasury policy (see note 19
starting on p156)</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">The treasury strategy and policy
is also subject to an Audit Committee risk 'deep dive'. See
p78</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
Overall treasury risk has reduced over 2017 due to a proactive
exercise to reduce gross debt and strengthen our balance sheet
which has had a direct impact on refinancing, counterparty and
interest</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
rate risk.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Pearson has no debt maturities in 2018. We anticipate that cash
from operations, our existing cash balances and cash equivalents,
together with availability under our existing credit facility, and
cash from operations, will be sufficient to fund</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
our operations for at least the next 12 months.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Pearson maintains investment grade credit ratings with Moody's and
Standard and Poor's which facilitate good access to capital
markets. These credit ratings in February 2018 were Baa2 (negative
outlook) with Moody's and BBB (negative outlook) with Standard and
Poor's. The negative outlooks reflect perceived business risk as
the business transforms, particularly in US Higher
Education.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
See note 19 starting on p156 for more information on credit,
counterparty, interest rate and transactional FX activities in
2017.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font> In
2018, we will continue to operate in line with our treasury policy.
More on this can be found in note 19, starting on
p156.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 31%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Data privacy and information security:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Risk of a data privacy incident or other failure to comply with
data privacy regulations and standards,</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
and/or a weakness in information security, including a failure to
prevent or detect a malicious attack on our systems, could result
in a major data privacy or</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
confidentiality breach causing reputational damage, damage to the
student experience, lack of</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
compliance and financial loss.</font></div>
</td>
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<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Information Security and Data
Privacy Offices</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Privacy impact assessment
process</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Regular audits</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Automated
tools</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Annual data privacy training and
awareness week</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Risk management
framework</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Vendor
oversight</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Audit Committee risk 'deep dive'.
See p78</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
Risks concerning cyber-security and data privacy remain high due to
complex external factors.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
We now have clarity on the increased regulatory obligations and
their impact on Pearson, such as the new EU data privacy law, the
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which will apply from May
2018 and introduce more onerous privacy obligations and more
stringent penalties for non-compliance. The UK's departure from the
EU is also adding another layer of uncertainty with regard to the
regulator, and customers are also demanding more from us in terms
of data privacy (e.g. GDPR and data sovereignty).</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
We continued to roll out our GDPR programme in 2017; our work to
improve the security of our critical products; as well as our
privacy impact assessment process for new vendors and
programmes.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Many information security risks previously identified have been
addressed, plus there was increased vendor oversight in 2017.
However, ongoing assessments uncover new vulnerabilities and risk
areas arising from increasingly sophisticated attack strategies, as
well as Pearson's ongoing transition to digital products, services
and cloud adoption.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In 2017, the information security team focused on an improvement
programme for critical applications, core platforms and
infrastructure to enable Pearson's digitisation and simplification
strategy. In addition, we also instituted a</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
programme to review our top vendor contracts to ensure they have
the most up-to-date data privacy and information security wording
and that they align with GDPR where relevant.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font> The
Data Privacy Office continues to monitor developments relating to
the UK's departure from the EU and, where necessary, adapt to any
new UK specific privacy developments. As Pearson operates across
several EU Member States, we will still need to comply with GDPR
when the UK leaves the EU.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
The information security team will continue to drive security
maturity (and also thus security compliance to GDPR, PCI, HIPAA,
FERPA and other regulatory requirements). A new risk management
tool has been deployed so that security risk accountability can be
cascaded effectively.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
We are conducting an inventory of what personal and other sensitive
data we hold and where in the organisation to better focus our
resources and attention.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Joint data privacy and information security activities to build
security and privacy controls into the design critical products
(including the new global learning platform) will
continue.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Increased vendor oversight is a critical initiative for security
and broad compliance.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 31%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Intellectual property and rights, permissions and
royalties:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Failure to adequately manage, procure, register or protect
intellectual property (IP) rights (including patents and general
copyright) in our brands, content and technology or to
prevent</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
unauthorised printing and</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
distribution of books and digital piracy may prevent us from
enforcing our rights which will reduce our sales and/or erode our
revenues.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Failure to obtain permissions,</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
or to comply with the terms of</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
permissions, for copyrighted or otherwise protected materials such
as photos resulting in potential litigation; risk of
authors</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
alleging improper calculations or payments of
royalties.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
(Decrease in probability)</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 69%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Policies in place to manage and
protect our IP</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Global trademark monitoring
platform</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Cooperation with trade
associations</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Monitoring of technology and legal
advances</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Patent programme in
place</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Establishment of Anti-piracy
Committee</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Legal department provides ongoing
monitoring and enforcement of print and digital copyright
piracy</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
Overall risk has reduced due to careful litigation management, the
continued negotiation of preferred vendor agreements, as well as
the ongoing work to implement a new rights and royalties system
which will further mitigate this risk. We started our phased
implementation of this system in the UK in 2017.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
We established an Anti-piracy Committee to manage piracy related
risk in a coordinated manner. We conduct internet monitoring,
takedown and internet 'search result' scrubbing to reduce digital
piracy. We have also worked with our larger North America channel
partners to adopt best-practice anti-counterfeit
measures.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
In 2017, we launched patent management technology to further
improve our asset tracking, as well as implementing a global
trademark monitoring platform to improve visibility of</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
potential infringement threats.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px"><font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic">
2018 outlook and plans:</font> We will continue to streamline our
portfolios; procure and register expanded rights in our high value
IP globally, including aggressively expanding our patent portfolio;
monitor activities and regulations; and proactively enforce our
rights, taking necessary legal action.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">We will
continue to implement the newly developed royalty and business
practices, along with the new rights management system across the
US and Canada during 2018.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">A new
author agreement is being rolled out in the first half of
2018.</font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 31%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Compliance:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Failure to effectively manage risks associated with compliance
(global and local legislation), including failure to vet
third-parties, resulting in reputational harm, anti-bribery and
corruption (ABC)</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
liability, or sanctions violations.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Expanded from the previously reported anti-bribery and corruption
risk.</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 69%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Audit Committee
oversight</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">ABC policy
certification</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Internal procedures and
controls</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Risk-based third-party due
diligence</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Employee and business partner
codes of conduct</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">(see also 'Respect for human
rights' under</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Sustainability on
p28)</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Local Compliance Officers
(LCOs)</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
Internal procedures, controls and training continue to mature,
which are designed to prevent corruption. Pearson's Code of Conduct
was refreshed and rolled out for all employee certification in
September 2017, including references to ABC policy and requirements
(also discussed under 'Sustainability on p28). Pearson's ABC policy
reflects our zero tolerance towards bribery and corruption of any
kind by establishing a consistent set of expectations and
requirements regarding ABC for all our personnel and business
partners to adhere to.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Pearson's 2016 ABC programme self-assessment served as a roadmap
for work for 2017-2018. Progress was made on ABC risk assessments
of the various regional and local business units.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
We conducted due diligence on our highest risk third-parties and
developed roll-out plans for further phases.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Pearson's ABC infrastructure includes a network of LCOs based in
country, mainly members of the legal team. This programme continues
to be successful with greater knowledge and competencies of the
LCOs and better leadership, guidance and helpful tools and
resources provided by the global compliance office.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font> In
2018, we will:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Implement a comprehensive plan for
risk-based roll-out of further ABC third-party due diligence,
including new tools and resources</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Roll out a comprehensive refresh
of the training programme on ABC and Code of Conduct
globally</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Continue risk assessments in 2018
to ensure that the ABC programme reflects local market and business
model risks, as well as plan actions to remediate issues revealed
during those assessments</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Employ a more robust analytic
framework to our investigative data to spot trends and root
causes.</font></font></div>
</td>
</tr><tr>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 31%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Competition law:</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Failure to comply with anti-trust and competition legislation could
result in costly legal proceedings and/or adversely impact our
reputation.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
(Increase in probability)</font></div>
</td>
<td style="vertical-align: top; width: 69%; border-left: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-right: 0.5pt solid #000000; border-bottom: 2px solid #000000">
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
Existing controls</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Global policy
published</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Training and
guidance</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Regular internal
communications</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 48px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: -24px">
<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">&#x27A2;&#xA0;
<font style="font-style: italic">Lawyer network</font></font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">Outcome of 2017 activities:</font>
This risk increased during 2017, reflecting our participation in
industry associations, including Board membership, as well as the
recent activity of associations being challenged by anti-trust
authorities such as in Spain.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
A global policy, general training and guidance were launched in
2017 and contain all the measures, indicators and actions required
to ensure anti-trust and competition compliance.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
A lawyer network was launched in 2017 and training has taken place
to improve their expertise around competition/anti-trust laws. An
increasing number of employees have also been trained. All
employees will need to be certified.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
<font style="font-weight: bold">2018 outlook and plans:</font>
Training, including e-learning modules, is being further expanded
in 2018 with metrics being developed to track engagement. The
lawyer network is contributing more data to feed into training and
risk assessment indicators.</font></div>
</td>
</tr></table>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
LEGAL NOTICE</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
"This document includes forward-looking statements concerning
Pearson's financial condition, business and operations and its
strategy, plans and objectives. In particular, all statements that
express forecasts, expectations and projections, including trends
in results of operations, margins, growth rates, overall market
trends, the impact of interest or exchange rates, the availability
of financing, anticipated cost savings and synergies and the
execution of Pearson's strategy, are forward-looking
statements.</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
<font style="font-style: italic; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">
&#xA0;</font></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-indent: 0px">
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SIGNATURE</font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">PEARSON
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">Date:&#xA0;<font style="font-weight: bold">04
April</font> <font style="font-weight: bold">2018</font></font></div>
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<font style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 13px">By: /s/
NATALIE WHITE</font></div>
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