The average length of annual reports for UK listed companies has come down in size, bringing them back to 2009 levels, according to a survey by Deloitte.
The Big Four firm’s latest instalment in its corporate reporting series, ‘Gems and Jetsam’, showed a 3% reduction overall in annual reports.
Deloitte says reasons for the decline have been attributed to companies cutting back on the narrative reporting on the front half of the annual report.
The length of the financial statements is unchanged, but while the overall decline is a move in the right direction in terms of ‘cutting the clutter’ out of reports, corporate reporting experts at Deloitte suggest more can be done.
Isobel Sharp, senior technical audit partner at Deloitte, said: ‘Given the complexities of company reporting, it was good to see even a modest decline. But annual reports are still 123% longer than when we began our surveys in 1996.
She said the International Accounting Standards Board had commissioned a report showing a 30% reduction should be possible.
Other key findings showed that: 76% of companies clearly adopted the 2009 FRC guidance on going concern and liquidity risk; 63% of investment trusts and 45% of corporate parent companies continue to report under UK GAAP and so will be affected by the current deliberations of the Accounting Standards Board on the future of UK accounting; and 81% of corporates cited operational issues as a principal business risk.
Source: Accountancy Live
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