A new year and a new beginning for a busy 2012

A belated Happy New Year.

The New Year is always the time to reflect on the past and plan for the future. I am very much looking forward to leading our work on the reporting agenda.  I take over the mantle at a time when building public trust and the demand for better quality disclosures in reporting have never been so relevant.  There has been a lot of activity over the past few weeks which will have a knock on effect for reshaping the reporting agenda in the foreseeable future. 

The Report Leadership Group – of which PwC is a member - has launched its corporate governance paper as a result of the heightened focus on the corporate governance of public companies.   Investors are increasingly demanding the need for management to go beyond simple compliance, and communicate their governance effectively to stakeholders. The paper offers simple, practical proposals for better reporting of corporate governance.  

One of the last places investors go to understand how well a company is governed is its governance statement because it fails to tell them what they need to know. The paper is designed to stimulate ideas rather than provide a one-size fits all solution to reporting. The aim is for better rather than more disclosure, and disclosure that is adapted to the circumstances of the company.

The deadline for comment on the IIRC's discussion paper "Towards Integrated Reporting" has now also passed with more than 50 leading companies signing up to take part in its integrated reporting pilot programme, with more expected to join soon. Coca-Cola, Microsoft, HSBC, Akzo Nobel, Volvo and Aegon were among the international participants at a kick-off meeting in Rotterdam back in October marking the start of the two-year project to develop an integrated reporting framework.  The IIRC pilot programme will see the companies exchange knowledge and share experiences that will feed into development of the IR Framework, which aims to address key corporate reporting challenges.   I share the sentiments of Paul Druckman, Chief Executive Officer at the IIRC, that "this is very exciting as different companies implement IR in different ways, and these participating companies, representing various sectors, will help demonstrate how this can be done"

2012 will be a busy year on the reporting front. A great deal of the research and thought leadership from the last few years is coming together with practical and joined-up initiatives.  I am therefore really looking forward to the year ahead.

Do please keep in touch - I really value your responses to this blog.

Bye for now.

Charles