Of interest to those responsible for the annual report
On 16 June, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) published an updated edition of the Guidance on the Strategic Report to incorporate climate-related financial disclosures, following changes in legislation made earlier this year. In addition, a number of other amendments were also made to maintain alignment with legislation.
The FRC describes the guidance as “[serving] as a best practice statement and, as such, has persuasive rather than mandatory force. One of its objectives is to set out high-level principles that enable entities to ‘tell their story’…[it is] …intended to serve as best practice for all entities preparing strategic reports.”
“This Guidance relates to the Companies Act 2006 requirement to prepare a strategic report, which was brought in through the following regulations:
- The Companies Act 2006 (Strategic Report and Directors’ Report) Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/1970);
- The Companies, Partnerships and Groups (Accounts and Non-Financial Reporting) Regulations 2016 (SI 2016/1245);
- The Companies (Miscellaneous Reporting) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/860);
- The Statutory Auditors Regulations 2017 (SI 2017/1164); and
- The Companies (Strategic Report) (Climate-related Financial Disclosure) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/31).”
For entities within their scope, the new climate-related financial disclosures are effective for financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2022.
The update guidance (all 125 pages of it) can be found here.
