Hello, and welcome to Costain's full year results presentation for 2021. I'm Alex Vaughan, CEO for Costain, and following a brief introduction from me, Helen Willis, our Group CFO, will present the financial results before I return to provide a strategic update ahead of our facilitated Q&A session. Now before introducing the results presentation, I wanted to step back and take a moment to talk about how we have changed our business since I became CEO, and to reflect on what we have achieved during 2021. We had another strong year of performance last year, delivering contracts well, securing the right type of new work, and increasing our position on consultancy and digital frameworks for our clients, cementing our position as a valuable strategic partner for our clients. We have importantly drawn a line under our contract issues and the last of which had been contracted as far back as 2016. Having learned the key lessons from these two contract issues and operating very differently, Costain is now a strong, resilient business, as is evidenced from delivering adjusted earnings in line with expectations for the last two years. Now last year, we completed an update of our strategy that confirmed our hypothesis for significant growth of profits and margins, and we have a clearer plan built on a really good progress we've made over the past two years, and a clear ambition to significantly increase the value of Costain. The business leadership is a diverse mix of experts focused on delivering our ambitions and continuously strengthening the business. Today, we are partners on our clients' strategic long-term investment programs. We have a broad team of experts. We're a leading modern contractor, a sizable value-adding consultant, and an emerging digital partner shaping a more productive and greener future. We are the new type of company who is best positioned to benefit from helping our clients meet their changing needs. Now moving to the results presentation, the key highlights are that we've delivered adjusted profits for full year 2022 that have increased by 67% to GBP 30 million and are in line with expectations. We've got strong cash generation and a good net cash position. We have drawn a line under the legacy contract issues, and we've completed a detailed strategy update reinforcing our opportunity. We have the leadership and strategy to deliver strong growth and have a positive outlook with a good secured revenue for the full year 2022. Helen. Thank you, Alex. I'll start by taking you through the headline financial performance for the full year. You will remember from previous results announcements that in order to provide clarity on the performance of the group and divisions, we reported revenue and operating profit and earnings per share on an adjusted basis as well as on a reported basis. I'll explain the differences between these statutory reported and adjusted metrics as we progress through the slides. For now, I'll focus on the adjusted metrics. Adjusted revenue was up 10% on last year, largely reflecting strong growth in transportation from National Highways and HS2. Adjusted operating profit was GBP 30.1 million for the full year, in line with expectations and up 67% on last year. We returned a 0.9 percentage point improvement in adjusted operating margin as well at 2.6% for the year. Adjusted earnings per share was 9.6 pence compared to 5.8 pence last year, a growth of 65%. Year-end cash was strong at GBP 119.4 million, and we returned a strong free cash flow of GBP 38.9 million, an increase of 23% over the GBP 31.6 million delivered last year, where free cash flow is defined as our cash flow from operating activities, excluding adjusting items less capital expenditure. Now turning to slide seven and our revenue walk. Focusing to start on the middle of the slide, you can see adjusted revenue has grown by 10.1% to GBP 1.179 billion. This was driven by Transportation division adjusted revenue growth of 19.3%, as we saw good growth in both road and rail with integrated transport largely flat year-over-year. This growth in transportation more than offset an 8.9% adjusted revenue decline in natural resources, reflecting reductions in water and energy, which were partially offset by growth in our defense sector. Moving now to the bars either side of the chart, these represent the adjustments made to our reported revenues and relate to significant contract provisions that were taken during the periods. On the right, a revenue adjustment of GBP 43.4 million was taken in relation to the settlement of the Peterborough and Huntingdon contract during FY 2021, resulting in a reported revenue of GBP 1.135 billion for the year. On the left, you'll remember that during the prior year, we took revenue adjustments totaling GBP 92.1 million on the A465 and Peterborough and Huntingdon contracts, as well as against a contract, ASF South, that completed a number of years ago, resulting in a reported revenue of GBP 978 million for FY 2020. Next, slide eight, the operating profit walk. Again, focusing on the middle of the slide to start with looking at the dark blue bars, you can see our adjusted operating profit has grown by 67.2% from GBP 18 million to GBP 30.1 million in line with expectations. Growth was driven by improvements across transportation, resulting in a GBP 21.3 million increase in divisional adjusted operating profit, partly offset by the weaker performance in natural resources, which saw a reduction in divisional adjusted operating profit of GBP 8.3 million. Central costs were GBP 1.2 million higher year on year, and we benefited to the tune of GBP 0.3 million on our year- on- year comparatives following the disposal of loss-making Alcaidesa in FY 2020. Adjusted operating margin was 2.6%, an improvement of 0.9 percentage points on last year. The improvement in adjusted operating profit and margin reflects the conclusion of lower margin work and an increased proportion of consulting and digital services. Moving to the bars either side of the chart. Again, these represent the adjustments made to our reported operating profit and largely relate to the significant contract provision taken during the periods on the legacy contracts A465 and Peterborough and Huntingdon. On the right you can see significant contract provisions were taken in the year amounting to GBP 39.2 million. As I mentioned before, a provision of GBP 43.4 million was taken in relation to the settlement of the Peterborough and Huntingdon contract, along with GBP 4.6 million of other costs associated with the dispute. We also released a provision of GBP 8.4 million on lower than provided final costs relating to the A465, which has now been opened. Other adjusted items of GBP 0.4 million were also recognized, resulting in a reported operating loss of GBP 9.5 million. On the left you can see provisions taken last year totaling GBP 99.7 million on the A465 and Peterborough and Huntingdon contracts, as well as against the contract ASF South that completed a number of years ago. We also recognized GBP 10.3 million of other adjusting items, largely on the impairment of goodwill on our natural resources division, which resulted in a reported operating loss of GBP 92 million for FY 2020. Now let's turn to the performance of each of our divisions in a little more detail. First, on slide nine, Transportation. Transportation adjusted revenue growth was 19.3% over FY 2020. Adjusted revenue for road increased by GBP 93.7 million or 29.7% on the prior year on increased work with our strategic partner, National Highways. Adjusted revenue for rail increased by GBP 50.1 million or 16.3% on the prior year, principally as a result of HS2, which increased in the year as a substantial completion of the enabling works was achieved and we benefited from the full year impact of the construction phase of the main works program. Our work on the Gatwick Airport station project for Network Rail also increased in the year. Integrated transport was largely flat year- on- year, and we commenced the revitalization of the A40 Westway for Transport for London during the year. Transportation adjusted operating profit grew by 106% in the year from GBP 20.1 million last year to GBP 41.4 million this year, returning an adjusted operating margin of 4.8% up two percentage points on FY 2020 due to more effective contract management and outperformance on a number of contracts. During the year, we secured GBP 248 million of new work. Revenue secured for FY 2022 for transportation stands at GBP 764 million against a prior year comparative of GBP 762 million. Looking ahead, we continue to see multiyear revenue growth in our work for HS2 and Network Rail, alongside further local government and integrated transport opportunities. Moving to slide 10 and natural resources. Natural resources adjusted revenues were 8.9% lower than FY 2020. Adjusted revenue for water declined by GBP 23 million or 10.3% on the prior year, driven by lower volumes of activity in the AMP7 water programs as clients adjusted their year one projects due to COVID-19. As the year progressed, volumes improved as the two-year programs commenced, and we are encouraged by our exit run rate from the year. Adjusted revenue for energy declined by GBP 15.5 million or 17.7% on the prior year. In H1, we saw a number of contract awards deferred into H2, and while H2 saw high demand for our engineering teams, this was not enough to compensate for the year as a whole. We see strong momentum into FY 2022, building on the success of the second half. Adjusted revenue for defense increased by GBP 7.8 million or 22.3% on the prior year, resulting in good growth in the year, albeit from a small base as we grow our footprint in this area. Natural resources returned an adjusted operating loss of GBP 2.6 million against a profit of GBP 5.7 million in FY 2020, with operating margin for natural resources on an adjusted basis down 2.1 percentage points, reflecting the lower revenue and increased costs, particularly within the water sector. Within the adjusted results for natural resources, we have recognized a GBP 6.2 million pound provision in respect of a defect in a subcontractor's works for a contract in the water sector. We expect the majority of the rectification costs to be recoverable. During the year, we secured GBP 185 million of new work. Revenue secured for FY 2022 for natural resources stands at GBP 271 million against a prior year comparative of GBP 278 million. Looking ahead, after lower activity in FY 2021, we expect to deliver growth across our water activities in FY 2022 as client investment programs are implemented. We see further opportunities for growth across energy, supporting decarbonization, and in defense, where we are broadening our market position to cover all strategic defense and security infrastructure. Moving to slide 11 and our balance sheet. The balance sheet has strengthened, with net assets increasing from GBP 156.5 million last year to GBP 199 million at the year-end FY 2021. This strengthening was driven in part by higher net cash of GBP 119.4 million against GBP 102.9 million last year on our strong cash flows. More on these on the next slide. As well as recognition of a pension surplus of GBP 67.1 million. This represents a movement in the accounting valuation from a deficit of GBP 5.6 million last year, primarily due to the remeasurement of financial assumptions. The next triennial valuation of the Costain Pension Scheme has an effective date of 31st March 2022. Initial results are expected from the trustees actually in July 2022, and discussions on these are expected to take place over the second half of 2022. We have until June 2023 to finalize the valuation. Other movements of note include a reduction in trade receivables and other assets driven by a significant reduction in contract assets and an increase in trade payables and other liabilities, mostly driven by the recognition of the Peterborough and Huntingdon settlement provision. Underlying, this represents a strong improvement in our working capital position. Moving now to slide 12 and the cash bridge. Net cash has increased from GBP 102.9 million last year to GBP 119.4 million for FY 2021. The highlight for me on this bridge is the green cash flow from operating activities of GBP 51 million over the year, excluding pension deficit contributions. This is a result of a relentless focus on cash collection and the resolution of compensation events. To the left of this are our cash flows on adjusting items of GBP 11.6 million, which represent cash outflows in the year on the two legacy contracts. These are essentially further cash costs which we have, as expected, incurred on the finalization of these contracts. We made cash contribution payments to the pension scheme of GBP 9.9 million over the course of the year and incurred capital expenditure of GBP 2.2 million. Taking these together with our adjusted cash flow from operations results in our free cash flow for the year of GBP 38.9 million, up 23% on FY 2020. After lease payments of GBP 10.8 million and repayment of borrowings of GBP 8 million over the year, we've ended FY 2021 at a net cash position of GBP 119.4 million. The Prompt Payment Code continues to be a real focus for us. We've consistently achieved the target of 95% of invoices paid within 60 days. Payment in respect of the settlement of the Peterborough and Huntingdon contract was made after the FY 2021 year-end and amounted to GBP 43.4 million. We remain in a strong net cash position with positive Costain cash balances following this payment. Moving to slide 13, we take a look at our cash and banking facilities. As I just mentioned, year-end cash was strong, and the net cash position comprised Costain cash balances of GBP 101.3 million compared to GBP 89.8 million in FY 2020. Cash held by joint operations, which have continued to decrease, were GBP 58.1 million compared to GBP 61.1 million at FY 2020. Lastly, borrowings of GBP 40 million compared to GBP 48 million at FY 2020, and these are quoted before arrangement fees. During the year, the Group's average month-end net cash balance was GBP 107 million as compared to GBP 73.8 million over FY 2020. Importantly, this was consistent throughout 2021, as you can see from the graph on the slide. The Group continues to maintain sufficient committed facilities to meet its normal funding requirements over the medium term, and as of the 31st of December 2021, these committed facilities totaled GBP 310 million in contract bonding and bank facilities. Bank facilities of GBP 171 million include a revolving credit facility of GBP 131 million and a term loan of GBP 40 million. These mature in September 2023, and we are already undertaking refinancing activities. The objective of our strategy is to deliver long-term value to shareholders while maintaining a strong balance sheet that underpins our financial position. Costain has targeted a dividend cover of around 3x adjusted earnings, taking into account the free cash flow generated in the period. It's important that we maintain a strong balance sheet that will support investment in the business to drive growth. Given the final settlement payment made after the close of the financial year in respect to the Peterborough and Huntingdon contract, the board does not consider it appropriate to recommend a final dividend this year, despite the group's improved operating and adjusted cash performance. We recognize the importance of dividends to shareholders and will continue to review the timing of the reinstatement of future dividends in the light of the group's performance, cash flow requirements, and the importance of maintaining a strong balance sheet. Now moving on to our order book on slide 14. The order book and secured revenue are defined as revenue from contracts which are partially or fully unsatisfied, and probable revenue from water frameworks included at the allocated volume. Our order book stood at GBP 3.4 billion at the year end against a prior year position of GBP 4.3 billion, reflecting our clients' five-year investment programs, greater discipline in contract selection, and the shorter lead time of consulting and digital work. The order book evolves as contracts wind down and new contracts are added. Therefore, it does not provide a complete picture of potential future revenue. In addition to the contracted order book, we have a further GBP 900 million of contracts where we are preferred bidder and around 50 further secured frameworks for higher margin consulting and digital services that will yield meaningful revenue each year. As a consequence, our already secured revenue for FY 2022 at the year end is more than GBP 1 billion. We expect to make further progress in FY 2022. We're well-positioned with more than GBP 1 billion of group revenue secured already for the year. Looking ahead, while we've entered the new year with good momentum, we are mindful of the macroeconomic backdrop and we continue to monitor and work with to mitigate headwinds in commodity and energy costs, as well as challenges in the supply chain. We remain confident in the group's strategy and the longer-term prospects. With that, I'll hand you back to Alex. Thank you, Helen. Now, I'm going to take you through our forward strategic direction, building in the context of the good progress we're already making. As I've outlined in previous presentations, our national infrastructure is facing enormous change, with challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, increased performance expectations, and economic and environmental resilience drivers, all more urgent than ever today. Now, we have purposely positioned ourselves in those key markets where committed strategic investment is being made to meet critical national needs, and where we can truly differentiate ourselves. The U.K.'s infrastructure is being shaped by the need to meet the realities of climate change, to ensure we maintain security of our natural resources, improve the performance of our infrastructure networks by embracing the digital revolution, and enable our communities and businesses to thrive. Now the U.K. government, in their national infrastructure pipeline, announced over GBP 650 billion of investment in the U.K.'s infrastructure to meet these national needs. Our clients, those blue-chip organizations who are responsible for providing our critical national services in our chosen markets, predominantly operate through underwritten and committed five-year business plans. Importantly, Costain has secured positions on these investment programs to deliver pioneering solutions to ensure that our clients achieve their business plan outcomes. Now, through a strategy update last year, we have confirmed our hypothesis that these markets and our clients' committed investment programs, through a broader offer, provide a significant opportunity for us to continue to drive growth in profits and increase the value of Costain. Addressing these challenges presents a huge opportunity, and in my mind, that requires a new kind of company. Now, we bring together a unique mix of experts, and we act as construction, consulting, and digital partners. We are not defined by the service we provide, but by being wholly focused on meeting the broad needs of our chosen blue-chip clients. I genuinely believe we are different and that that difference is valuable. We have aligned our business to meet our clients' changing needs, and to truly do this, you need to be able to offer a broader solution. Now, we are a business that influences and shapes the solutions to meet new needs. For example, we are developing a first-of-a-kind hydrogen storage facility solution for HyNet to support the U.K.'s energy transition. Now, the facility is to enable excess hydrogen to be stored underground in salt caverns during low demand periods and discharged into the gas network during peak periods. It will store enough gas to heat 750,000 homes for a year. Now, we also support clients with their wider business needs. For example, leveraging our rail delivery expertise is now helping Network Rail with their strategic infrastructure planning, identifying new approaches which are both faster and more efficient. We're doing this through our positions on two consultancy frameworks that we hold with Network Rail. We're also expertly supporting the delivery of capital investment programs, primarily as a leading contractor on programs such as HS2, National Highways programs, water frameworks, Tideway, rail infrastructure, et cetera. However, we are also now one of the leading delivery partner or program management organizations where through our growing consultancy role, leveraging our delivery expertise, we oversee capital investment programs for AWE, Cadent, and Babcock. Increasingly important, we're helping our clients optimize the performance of their business operations. For example, where we're helping United Utilities to transform their asset maintenance programs, or where we're supporting EDF to extend the life of their existing nuclear generation fleet, or even where we're helping three water companies to optimize their existing network performance and avoid regulatory failures, and where our digital infrastructure provides highway safety and resilience, as well as where we're supporting central government in their infrastructure resilience planning. Now, by being a truly strategic partner, not shaped or constrained by a particular service offer, who supports its clients across the full value cycle of their business, we will broaden our services, grow our business through an increased addressable market, and increase our profits and margins. Sadly, we have had two problem contracts, and while I'm glad we're putting them behind us, I want to reinforce that since becoming CEO, I have transformed the way we secure the right type of new work and effectively deliver our operational activities. Now, two years ago, we undertook a root and branch review of our work winning and contract management processes. In winning the right type of new work, we've made a number of changes. Now, following an early identification of opportunities within our pipeline, we actively work with our clients to shape the nature of their contract strategy, leveraging the government's Construction Playbook to ensure we have a fairer and reasonable risk or reward environment. Now, one example of the success of doing this is transforming one of our energy clients' approaches from a traditional EPC form of contract to a more collaborative Project 13 alliance contract with a significantly reduced and balanced risk transfer. We've also put in place a clearer contract framework of our commercial expectations against which we govern every new work opportunity, being selective in the work we wish to secure. Now, we are robust in declining opportunities that vary from this framework, where for us, the opportunity just has an unacceptable risk profile. We recently rejected a significant five-year framework for one water company, where quite frankly, the contract would have committed us to take the risk on their business plan with little recourse for any errors in that plan. Now, once we agree to progress with a tender opportunity, all of our contracts and tenders have a risk review undertaken by a team independent of that bid team. This has been invaluable in ensuring that we have a fresh set of eyes reviewing every opportunity. This is all supported by a restructured legal function, which with senior commercial lawyers now embedded in the divisions and therefore involved throughout the contracting process to ensure that our contracts are adequately reviewed and managed. In summary, we work to shape the contract to meet our expectations. We're highly selective. We strictly police the risk in terms of any contract. We independently ensure and verify the tender approach and have put in place the right team to ensure we are legally well protected. Now, importantly, not only do these actions protect us, but they are also increasing the number of opportunities we can pursue and are improving our risk-return position. Now, once a contract has been signed and is operational, there are a further series of measures in place to ensure that our delivery is assured and unlocks upside potential. Two years ago, we implemented our operational excellence model across all new and long-term contracts. This encompasses all the functions of change management, design management, project management, commercial management, et cetera, and is our best practice framework for contracts to adhere to, with monthly assurance reviews to ensure that we are working to these brilliant basics. Now, this not only ensures we deliver our contracts effectively, but has also increased our contract margins. As a direct result of rigorously working to OEM, for example, one of our highway contracts recently completed significantly ahead of program below budget and secured a number of our clients' upside incentives. The financial performance of every contract is reviewed monthly with an increased holistic assessment of the potential performance outcomes, risks, and opportunities. This ensures that we avoid any confirmation bias and challenge ourselves as to what the potential outcomes could be, both good and bad, and what actions we can take to address them. Such a review ensures we create the right environment and opportunity to openly discuss both those opportunities and challenging and ensures that senior management are engaged and actions taken at pace. Now positively, not only are these changes protecting the performance of the business, but they're also unlocking better performance. Now all of these measures were put in place two years ago and have been operating effectively over that time. They have supported our in line performance and will continue to do so moving forward. Now with our clear market focus, differentiated offer, and assured delivery, I wanna talk about three levers in how we are gonna deliver growth in both profits and margins. Firstly, over the past two years, we have now built a very strong core to our business. We have secured and are working on the majority of the five-year investment programs for our clients across transportation and water, including HS2, Regional Delivery Partnership program, CP6, and AMP7. We have built a leading position as a business shaping the energy transition and have a growing defense business. We have secured positions on over 50 consultancy and digital frameworks from which we will now grow our services. A measure of that is we've now been recognized by the Financial Times for the third year as one of the U.K.'s leading management consultancies. Secondly, through our strategy update, we have identified four primary growth areas. Returning to being a top ten partner for Network Rail through their CP7 programs, which we're currently active tendering. Taking advantage of the growing investment in green energy, leveraging our strong position, shaping that market, and we're seeing an increased momentum in this area this year. Targeting the increased investment through local and devolved governments, which aims to support regional growth and connectivity. This includes investment as part of the integrated transport plans. Building our digital expertise with our new leadership team to become a leader in the digital transformation of infrastructure performance. Thirdly, through increasing our margins through a better and broader mix of services. We have an ambition to deliver operating margins of between 5% and 6%. As we continue to upgrade the execution of our construction contracts and complete the old lower-margin contracts, we will increase our construction margins to a range of 3%-5%. We're gonna continue to grow the volume of our consultancy contracts as we increase the scale of energy and defense and our other market positions and increase the margins as we work through our now secured frameworks, which have net margins above 5%. We're gonna build the scale in our higher-margin digital services, delivering returns over and above the current cost base in line with our updated plans and under our new leadership team. The above three levers for growth will enhance both profitability and margins, and we're also targeting 90% cash conversion of this profit into cash. Coming back to where I started, our national infrastructure is facing enormous change, with challenges that are more urgent than ever. We have purposefully positioned ourselves in those key markets where committed, strategic investment is being made to meet critical national needs and where we can truly differentiate ourselves. Our clients in our chosen markets operate through underwritten and committed five-year business plans and importantly, Costain has secured positions on these investment programs to deliver pioneering solutions to ensure that our clients achieve their business plan outcomes. We are operating a strong and effective business and through our strategy, we have a significant opportunity to continue to drive profit growth and increase the value of Costain. Thank you. I wonder if we can open the lines for the Q&A. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure that your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, that is star one for your questions today. Our first question today comes from Joe Brent from Liberum. Please go ahead. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Joe. Sorry, I thought you were. It's Alex. How are you? Very well, thank you. Three questions if I may. Firstly, could you tell us a little bit more about the water contract where you've made the GBP 6 million provision, and when it was signed? Secondly, could you tell us if that was a target cost reimbursable contract and kind of what target cost reimbursable means for you? Because I think it does mean slightly different things to different people. Thirdly, could we talk about the changing nature of highways work? Because I think the National Highways is now insourcing some work, and clearly, there are other opportunities coming out of it as well. Okay. Well, morning again, Joe. It's Alex, and thanks for that. Let me take those three in turn. The water contract, just the way we've decided to recognize the revenue on that contract. We've got, on that contract, one of our suppliers, there are questions around the design, of what they delivered, and whether it meets the outcome requirements. We're very confident that we've got routes to recover that money. However, just looking at IFRS 15 and how you should recognize the revenue, we've decided to make a provision for what we believe the risk to be. I think as we've guided, we expect to recover the majority of that provision this year. We don't anticipate this being an issue that we'll be left with. This is a contract on a framework, and it was entered into about three years ago. Look, you know, it's just that from an IFRS 15 point of view, we believe it's a very prudent way of recognizing revenue and, you know, we're very confident that that will recover. It isn't an issue, and it's not an issue in what we've been delivering. If I come back to it is a target cost contract. Target cost contracts, effectively, we work with the client. We develop a target cost that we believe will be the outturn cost for the contract. We then enter into that contract, we deliver that, we get paid our costs on a reimbursed basis monthly up to the level of that target. Once you reach that target, if you're below it, in other words, your outturn cost is less than the target, then there will be some mechanism between us and the client that we share in the benefit of that. If the outturn cost is above that, then again, there's a mechanism that we share the downside pain on the outturn cost. Just to be very clear, we also have caps and collars on that pain, so we don't have an open-ended risk. We've got a pretty good way of controlling what the downside risk is on these contracts. Hopefully that gives you a feel for what Costain talks about when we talk about target cost contracts. Just looking at highway- I think the caps and collars are key, aren't they? Sorry? Sorry. Sorry to interrupt. The caps and collars. I was just saying that the caps and collars are obviously critical. Yeah, they're critical. Yeah. To management of the downside risk. We have, you know, the contracts we're entering into, we have very conservative caps and collars under the contracts, so we certainly don't have any open-ended risks on that downside. Just to give you a feel about that conservatism, it's a direct link between risk and reward. What we're trying to do is have a much better balance between, well, what risk are we taking and what reward are we getting? That's certainly improved. I think the Construction Playbook, which you've talked about quite extensively, Joe, has been a big influence in terms of setting those targets and setting those caps and collars. If I can move to the changing nature of highway work. Look, I think what's great is for two road investment strategies now, RIS 1, RIS 2, National Highways have now got five-year budget programs. Positively, what they've done is appointed partners to work with them on their regional delivery strategy. That's all of their road networks for the major upgrades. A lot of that is about improving connectivity both for business and for the population to increase economic activity and improve the safety and resilience and, you know, performance of traveling on the road network. Those are ten-year programs, and Costain has secured a place on that regional delivery program and on the smart motorway program, as you know. The way those contracts work is that we get selected on a performance basis. Based on your performance in delivering prior schemes, you then get allocated work under that framework. We then develop a target cost for the scope of work with the client. We agree that target cost, and then we get appointed to then deliver that work. That's the type of work we're involved in. We're not involved in the highway maintenance work at the moment, and certainly, the highway maintenance work has changed significantly, where National Highways are using more Tier 2 suppliers, as opposed to the Tier 1 suppliers in the delivery of those frameworks. Does that answer your question, Joe? Absolutely. Thank you very much indeed. All right. Thank you. Thank you. We now move on to our next question from Andrew Nussey from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good morning, everyone. A couple of questions from me, please. First of all, in terms of rail, could you just give us a feel for where HS2 is in terms of ramp up and levels of activity? Then sort of in terms of Network Rail, Alex, you mentioned sort of targeting, you know, CP7 opportunities. Could you just expand on that? Because I think historically, you know, Costain has had exposure to sort of major stations upgrades and larger projects. Just kind of where you see the specific opportunities for Costain. Then just in terms of more broadly, you highlighted there's continuing margin drag in construction from older frameworks and contracts. Could you just expand on that in terms of timelines in which they should start to drop out and be replaced with better margin activity, please? Okay. Well, good morning, Andrew. Good to speak to you. What I'll do is I'll take the first two of those, and then I'll ask Helen to respond to the margin drag question. Look, if we come to rail and HS2, our HS2 contracts, we're now ramped up and operating probably at the peak level of output on that contract, and that's gonna continue for at least another three years. We've got a lot of work. We're launching our tunnel boring machines this summer. Yeah, certainly a lot of activity going on the HS2 contract. As you know, for HS2, the enabling works contract that we've had will come to an end this year. We've had that contract while the main works contract has ramped up. We're also still advising the client on the hybrid bill works as well. We're actively tendering three other contracts on HS2 at the moment. We'd look for that activity to continue and to grow moving forward. Just on Network Rail, you're absolutely right. Under CP5, Control Period Five investment, Costain was extensively involved in London Bridge Station, Reading Station, and then a lot of the overhead line electrification works. During CP6, there's been a lot less of that work, so our volume of work with Network Rail has subsequently declined. You know, we've been delivering during CP6, we've been delivering Gatwick Station, and actually we've been doing a lot of consultancy work for them, helping them in their forward-thinking and strategic plans of future network upgrades. For CP7, we're targeting two regions, the south and the east. You know, those are gonna be more of a framework type of procurement. You'll be appointed for a five-year framework, and then you'll be delivering a number of schemes and upgrades through that framework. You know, that's where we wanna target. Look, my ambition, we used to be Network Rail's largest supplier, but predominantly because of the amount of work in CP5 that suited our capabilities. I'd like to build us back to being certainly a top 10 supplier with Network Rail, an important strategic client for us. Helen, can I hand over to you? Sure. Morning, Andrew. So on the margin drag question, for complex program delivery, all of our new contracts, new and recent, as Alex said in his presentation, go through our OEM process and are operating as we would like, with the new measures in place. There are some older contracts that are coming to the end of their existence, call it that do have a margin drag. So for example, the likes of Crossrail, so those are coming to an end. I think by the end of this year, we will really have brought most of those out. It's not much longer to go. The focus is absolutely on OEM, making sure we initiate contracts well and we monitor them well through their life. That's where all focus is. Okay, great. Does that answer your question? Makes sense. Yep. Thank you. Thanks, Andrew. Thank you. We now move on to Jonny Coubrough from Numis with our next question. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Two for me, please. Firstly, on a broader question, around the strategy update. I'd just be grateful if you could bridge for us how we should expect that 5%-6% group EBIT margin ambition would be delivered in terms of the mix of business between the 3.5% OEM margin business and then 5% consultancy and digital. Then also, I think you called out that the consultancy and digital target margins should be about 5%. Just keen to hear, I mean, that seems to be a bit lower than the level set out in the CMD of 8%. I'd be grateful if you could give a bit of detail around what's driving that. And then the other question would be on natural resources, and I'm interested to hear why costs have increased in that division during the year. Thanks very much. Okay. Good morning, Jonny. I'll take the first two, and then I'll let Helen do the natural resources one. Look, just on the strategy update. Look, you know, what we wanted to do last year was stress test the hypothesis that we had that the government investment and private investment going into our markets, and the challenges the clients were focused on and what they wanted to achieve, did that give us ample opportunity to significantly grow the business and its returns? The outcome of that update, we stress-tested, and we looked at all the other markets, ranked those, came back and said, "Yes." As you've said, we've put together, you know, a consistent strategy, but, you know, with clearer focus now to deliver those 5%-6% margins. As I outlined in the presentation just now, there are three real growth drivers for Costain coming up with strategy. One is to leverage the position that we've worked hard on over the last two years to build. We are secured on a significant number of long-term frameworks that give us at least another five to eight years visibility and work, as well as the 50 consultancy and digital frameworks that we've worked really hard to win. I think that's a tremendous success to grow our digital and consultancy services. We needed to get on those frameworks, and we're now on those frameworks with our clients. That's great. You know, we've got a plan to grow our construction activities, and as Helen said just now, you know, through the OEM, we're seeing the margins on that work going up, and we're confident that we'll be able to deliver in the 3%-5% range for the construction activities. Then on the consultancy and digital, we've just sort of highlighted that as being above 5%. That's quite variable. It will certainly be, and that's a net return. We certainly see that being significant. There's a significant range above 5%. Some of the consultancy services that we're providing are earning, you know, significantly ahead of that, you know, into double-digit net margins. Certainly we'd be looking for a lot of our digital services, certainly where it is more sort of data data-based services as opposed to product services. Product services in digital will be sort of at a lower margin. You know, where it's data-led services, and we're providing some of those at the moment, they'll be at much higher margins. That's how the strategy. I think what's positive coming out the strategy, we've got real confidence in what the clients are gonna spend, where they're gonna spend it. You know, last month, I had, you know, 10 meetings with the chief executives of some of our major clients, you know, and we really understand where they're gonna spend the money, what the propensity is to buy, and that's reinforced the strategy that we've got. We've made really good progress in securing positions and building our capability. It's now about delivering it, and we're very confident that we'll be delivering, you know, group operating margins of between 5% and 6%. Helen, can I hand over to you on the natural resources? Sure. Morning, Jonny. Natural Resources results are clearly not where we would like it to be. A loss of GBP 2.6 million for the year. I think there's a couple of important factors to consider there. One is the provision that Alex referenced just a while ago in one of Joe's questions. The provision of GBP 6.2 million leading to the loss of GBP 2.6 million from the supplier design issue that we were just explaining. We are confident that we'll get a significant proportion of that back, and therefore you should consider that that's an imbalance, I guess, between having to take the provision on cost before we can recognize the asset that will be resulting during next year. GBP 2.6 million, consider some portion of that to add back, takes I think a more underlying position into profit. We did talk at the half year on the slow start for water and energy, and we've certainly seen energy coming back in the second half as we expected, and really good momentum coming into 2022. It's all consultancy, and we are busy with vacancies, in fact, to fill the demand. That's going really well. Water, you know, in the water sector, the clients will need to ramp up their spend on AMP7. We anticipate that that will grow through 2022, and in fact, the second half was slightly better. I guess three main factors within the result for the year. We continue to drive that business hard, with new leadership, and hope for a more successful 2022. Okay, Jonny. Thank you. If there are no further telephone questions, I would like to hand the call over to take any questions from the webcast. Thanks very much. That's okay. We've got a number of questions from the webcast. The first question is from Terry Sweeney. The dividend policy indicates earnings cover of 3 x. Is it reasonable to expect this to apply from 2022 onwards, given the completion of all legacy issues and the net cash position of over GBP 75 million after payment of the PNH liability in early 2022? Good morning, Terry. I'll take that question. Yes, we've restated our dividend policy of 3x, as you say. For us, what's really important is the strength of the balance sheet, as well as our ability to invest in the growth of the business. Having suffered the payment to Peterborough and Huntingdon at the beginning of the year, we really feel that we need to take a cautious approach here to make sure that we've bolstered the strength of the balance sheet, and unless the option is open for ourselves to invest. I think it's important to underline here that our balance sheet is not an impediment to tendering. We're busy tendering and pre-qualifying for the bids that we would like to be involved in. Keeping that strength of balance sheet really important for us, but we recognize the importance of the dividends, and we'll keep under review when is the right time for us to reinstate with those considerations in mind. Great. Thank you for that, Helen. Next question is from Jonathan Makin. How is Costain mitigating inflation risks? Are you looking to incorporate inflation adjustment clauses in contracts, for example? Okay. Well, I'll take this. Thank you, Jonathan, for the question. A very important question. Look, inflation risk is a combination of Brexit and the bounce back from the pandemic, and now the very sad situation in Ukraine, which we all hope is resolved very quickly, is creating a challenge in the marketplace. It's about labor availability, it's about material availability, and it's now massively about energy prices. The way that we're dialing into this is that it's about greater collaboration. What we learned from the pandemic is actually by collaborating and getting a lot closer with clients and suppliers, you know, we can deliver great services in a very different way. We're using that learning, and that experience and the relationships that we've honed to work with our clients to come up with new approaches to achieve the outcomes they need that allows us to offset and manage, some of those, inflation risks. You know, this isn't a problem we're just giving to the clients. We're actively working with them to try and mitigate it the best we can. I think we're really helped in doing that because a lot of the work we've got is long-term visibility. We've got the ability to work with our supply chain and our clients well ahead of the curve and really think about how we're gonna mitigate, some of these costs. Just coming to the protections that we have under our contract. The majority of our contracts have provision to protect us from the escalation and inflation, which is good. On the other contracts, where we agree a target cost, then obviously those tend to be shorter-term contracts where we've built in allowances and risks into those contracts to be able to cover these costs. I think, you know, it's a more holistic approach to working with clients because, you know, we've got to achieve the outcomes for the best possible value possible and that's what everyone's working really hard on. Thank you for the question, Jonathan. Thanks very much, Alex. We've got our final question from Andrew Blane from Investec. Please, can you give us an update on the latest situation regarding smart motorways and the implications for the order book? Okay. Morning, Andrew. Thanks for your question. Smart motorway program. Look, it's been publicly broadcast, so obviously the government has sought to suspend the smart motorway program, pending a review of the actions being taken to increase the safety and address the concerns with the smart motorways. For the short term, we're very busy on that framework, delivering the smart motorways that we've already got started, which the government has agreed will continue and be completed. We're working on those. We're also very active in installing additional refuge points, so safe areas on the existing smart motorway program. We're going in and retrofitting those, and we're also putting in place upgrades to the stopped vehicle detection, so the technology that helps identify cars that have broken down so that they can be, you know, met and taken care of as quick as possible. You know, in the short term, there's a lot of work that we're still doing, so it won't affect us over the next couple of years. I think if I look at it, you know, National Highways has a Road Investment Strategy that they're embarked upon whilst we will work with them to find a solution to the smart motorways, 'cause the smart motorways was the answer to how do we increase capacity on the motorway network without building more road. We've still got to work and do a lot of work on how we're gonna answer that question. Also in the rest of the RIS2 program, there's a lot of work to be done and a lot of opportunities. There is a longer list than the budget that's available. You know, we're pretty confident that the overall Road Investment Strategy will be prioritized to target the improvements that are the most important. Positively for us, you know, we've secured a place on all of those frameworks for National Highways, so, you know, we will be their partner of choice to help them deliver those outcomes. I don't foresee it creating any longer term, medium term or longer term issue for us. I hope that answers your question, Andrew. Good. Thanks very much for that, Alex. We've got no further questions from the webcast just now, so I'd like to hand back to yourself for closing remarks. Okay. Well, look, thanks very much, everyone, for your time. Last year was a year for us of putting in place all of the enablers to unlock our future success and to draw a line under the legacy contract issues. I think we've done that well, and we're nearly well-placed. As a business, we are looking forward with confidence and look forward to updating you on the further progress that we make as we transform Costain. Thank you very much. Have a good rest of the day.