The Institute of Chartered Accountants of
Scotland (ICAS) and the New Zealand Institute of Chartered
Accountants (NZICA) are jointly reviewing the level of disclosure
requirements in IFRS, following concerns about the increasing size
of financial reports.
The International Accounting Standards Board
(IASB) has asked the two institutes to research and review the
levels of disclosure requirements in existing IFRS and recommend
deletions and changes.
The research, initiated by the IASB, responds
to concerns by various market participants about the increasing
size of annual reports and the financial statements therein.
ICAS said that the risk is that readers are
being bombarded by so many numbers that important main messages are
lost.
“I think it is important to be able to see the
significant pieces of information and not get totally swamped by
detail,” ICAS executive director David Wood said .
The two institutes are approaching the project
in two different ways. “It’s a two way approach; one is a more
holistic one which looks at the standards as a whole and the other
is more focused on a principals based approach which is allowing
management to decide on the level of dislousure,” Wood added.
ICAS said the project is being led by an
oversight group of preparers, users and accountants in practice.
The group is jointly chaired by Deloitte partner Isobel Sharp and
former ICAS president, as well as NZICA former president and
professional company director Tony Frankham.
The two institutes expect to have draft
results of the research available in June.
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