Regulators push for ‘stewardship’ in reporting
Want stewardship/accountability objective to be separate objective of financial reporting
Accounting regulators from Europe and the UK have published a
brief
paper discussing the rationale for including stewardship, or
directors’ accountability to shareholders, as a separate objective of financial
reporting.
Among the regulators to have participated are the European
Financial Reporting Advisory Group
(EFRAG), the UK’s Accounting Standards
Board (ASB) and a number of other European accounting standard-setters.
The idea was first proposed by IASB and FASB in their July 2006 Discussion
Paper ‘Preliminary Views on an improved Conceptual Framework for Financial
Reporting’ which said a converged framework should specify only one
objective of financial reporting, that of ‘decision-usefulness’ for resource
allocation. They argued that this objective ‘encompasses providing information
useful in assessing management’s stewardship’.
Further reading:
US edges closer to standard harmony
Mary Keegan scores on Queen’s Honours list
The IFRS 8 row is still ringing in our ears
