Written statement on Simpler corporate reporting - Mar 19

Minister for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business (Kevin Hollinrake): Yesterday, the Government announced its first set of intended regulatory changes as part of its commitment to make the non-financial reporting framework smarter, simpler and better for business. These changes focus on reducing regulation on small and medium-sized companies, ensuring that reporting requirements are proportionate, so that those companies can focus on their growth and delivering for their customers.

The Government intends to lay legislation this summer to lift the monetary thresholds that determine company size by 50% to take account of inflation and to reduce burdens on smaller businesses, a change that we are able to make following the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (see table). Overall, the effect of these changes is that 5,000 large companies would be reclassified as medium-sized and access more proportionate reporting; 13,000 medium-sized companies would be reclassified as small companies, enabling them to benefit from exemptions to statutory audit requirements as well as the ability to file simpler accounts; and 113,000 small companies would be reclassified as micro-sized companies which will allow them to file simpler accounts: a benefit for more than one in every four businesses that are currently classified as small.

*nmt = not more than

The Government will also remove several low-value, obsolete or overlapping requirements from the Directors’ Report, and from the Directors’ Remuneration Report and Policy; make it easier for companies to issue digital annual reports; and fix some technical issues in the audit regulatory framework that have been identified following the assimilation of EU law into UK law.

In total, these changes will deliver a deregulatory saving of around £150 million per year to UK companies, with small and medium companies set to benefit by approximately £145 million per year.

The regulations will directly benefit both preparers and users of annual reports and accounts. They will remove low-value and duplicative information and make annual reports shorter, more navigable and better focused. Preparers of annual reports - UK businesses up and down the country - will have more time to spend on running their business. Users of reports - investors and shareholders - will be able more easily to access relevant information to support effective decision making.

By refining the framework and delivering deregulatory cost-savings for business, the Government is taking action to strengthen the UK’s business environment and our international reputation as a great place to do business.

And the Government intends to go further. The Government intends to consult later this year on amending the definition of a medium-sized company for company reporting so that the threshold on the maximum number of employees to be classified as a medium-sized company is increased from 250 to 500. It will also consult on exempting medium-sized companies from having to produce a strategic report and on exempting smaller public interest entities from audit tendering and rotation requirements. This will further reduce the bureaucratic burden on companies that are the life blood of the UK economy meaning that they would not be subject to the more stringent reporting and accounting requirements faced by large businesses. I will update the House on these further proposals in due course.