Page 252 - Annual Report 2020

Integrated global EY Australia and EY UK operate as one integrated group audit team which was responsible for the direction and
primary team and supervision of the group audit engagement in compliance with professional standards and applicable legal and
their involvement with regulatory requirements. This integrated group audit team established the overall group audit strategy, communicated
EY component teams with component teams, performed work on the consolidation process, and evaluated the conclusions drawn from
the audit evidence as the basis for forming the opinions on the financial statements. Audit instructions outlined the
significant audit areas, performance materiality thresholds, which ranged from US$158 million to US$394 million,
and specific reporting requirements.
For the purpose of the Group audit, the integrated group audit team was responsible for directing, supervising,
evaluating and reviewing the work of EY global network firms operating under their instruction (local EY teams)
to assess whether:
• the work was performed and documented to a sufficiently high standard;
• the local EY audit team demonstrated that they had challenged management sufficiently and had executed their
audit procedures with a sufficient level of scepticism; and
• there was sufficient appropriate audit evidence to support the conclusions reached.
Each in-scope location has a local EY audit team led by a partner. Our in-scope locations cover four geographical
locations, being Australia, Chile, United States and Singapore. These local audit teams were supported by an audit
team in Malaysia and the Philippines performing procedures over centralised group functions.
The Group audit team interacted regularly with the local EY teams during each stage of the audit, were responsible
for the scope and direction of the audit process and reviewed key working papers. This, together with the additional
procedures performed at the group level, gave us sufficient appropriate audit evidence for our opinion on BHP’s
Consolidated Financial Statements.
A global team audit planning event was held in Australia in March 2019 (discussed further below). During the audit
period, the group audit team visited the local EY teams in Chile, United States, Australia, Singapore, London,
Philippines and Malaysia, where their scope, planned audit approach and areas of risk were discussed and we met
with local BHP management.
Changes due to COVID-19
The group audit team adapted their approach to interact with and monitor local EY teams in response to the COVID-19
pandemic. Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions imposed by governments, we did not complete our planned second
visits to the locations visited during the planning phase of the audit, as well as planned travel to Brazil and Canada.
In lieu of these additional visits, we maintained continuous dialogue with our local EY teams. This included: additional
meetings with our component teams and local BHP management via video conference and performing remote review
of the key workpapers associated with the component teams’ audit procedures.
We attended all meetings with our component teams and local management to conclude the audit procedures at
each location by phone or videoconference, to ensure that we were fully aware of their progress and results of their
audit procedures.
The performance of the year end audit was also required to be conducted remotely due to COVID-19 restrictions and
social distancing requirements at both component and Group locations. This was supported through remote access
to the Group’s financial systems and the use of EY software collaboration platforms for the secure and timely delivery
of requested audit evidence.
First year audit In preparation for our first-year audit of the year ended 30 June 2020 financial statements, we performed a number
considerations of transition activities to build on our knowledge of BHP’s specific risks, policies and processes to enable us to identify
the risks of material misstatements to the financial statements and to determine the scope of our audit. The principal
procedures performed included:
• Establishing independence from BHP in December 2018 by exiting non-audit services that would impair our
independence and ensuring that all staff and partners who work on the audit globally are independent of BHP;
• Establishing an appropriately resourced and skilled global audit team, including specialists, in all relevant locations;
• Engaging with management at a group and local level in order to obtain a detailed understanding of BHP, including
its processes and internal controls, and accounting policies;
• Developing and delivering a bespoke global audit planning event in March 2019 for the global audit team members
from our significant locations where an overview of the Group and the group scope and audit strategy was
discussed. Any updates to our initial audit strategy were communicated to the global audit team members
throughout the audit;
• Shadowing KPMG, the previous auditor, during the half year ended 31 December 2018 review and year ended
30 June 2019 audit at group and key locations during closing meetings with management to gain insights
on key issues impacting BHP, as well as attending BHP Risk and Audit Committee meetings as observers.
• Understanding accounting policies and historic accounting judgements by reviewing accounting policy manuals
and technical documentation on specific accounting topics;
• Reviewing key elements of KPMG’s 2018 and 2019 audit files at both the group level and key locations in scope
for the group audit; and
• Conducting group audit team visits to locations in Australia, Chile, United States, Singapore, Philippines,
United Kingdom and Malaysia.
We presented our audit plan to the BHP Risk and Audit Committee in June 2019 and provided the Committee
with written updates to our plan in October 2019 and June 2020.

250 BHP Annual Report 2020