FRIDAY 26 MAR 2021 5:05 PM

FRC PUBLISHES FIRST CORPORATE REPORTING SUMMARY

The Financial Reporting Council has published summaries of its corporate reporting reviews to the public for the first time. The move aims to increase corporate transparency and engagement.

FRC conducts over 200 corporate reporting reviews annually to assess company reports and accounts, and ensure they comply with relevant accounting and reporting requirements.

The new approach comes after Sir John Kingman’s Independent Review of the FRC recommended reports should be made public.

Currently, report summaries can only be published with the consent of individual companies. On 18 March the Government published a consultation ‘Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance’ containing proposals to enhance the regulation of corporate findings.

The decision to publish reporting summaries works towards the idea of greater transparency within the current legal restrictions of confidentiality. The FRC previously published the names of companies reviewed without providing further details of review findings.

David Rule, FRC’s executive director of supervision, says “Publishing summaries of corporate reporting reviews is an important step towards improving the transparency of the FRC’s monitoring work and an example of the FRC taking forward the Government’s programme to restore trust in audit and corporate governance.”

The Financial Reporting Council is the UK’s regulator for accounting, audit and actuarial professionals. It is also responsible for corporate governance in the UK.