The paper states that whilst it is widely acknowledged that transactions with and between members of the same group should not influence the outside appearance of that group and therefore be eliminated, such eliminations do result in a loss of information which is definitely and finally lost for outside users of financial statements. It goes on to note that, furthermore, much of today’s complexity in the environment is not captured in the group’s financial statements although it could highly influence the position, performance and cash flows of the group.

The paper can be accessed on the IASB website.

An agenda for the meeting is not yet available, however, papers are in the process of being posted here.

As reported earlier, a major topic of the meeting was wider corporate reporting and the way forward for the IASB. Please see our detailed summary of that discusssion. (The IASB has just recently added a project to its agenda that seeks to review and update the Management Commentary Practice Statement issued in 2010 to help address the lack of alignment and integration between wider corporate reporting and financial reporting.)

The IFASS members also discussed:

• Cooperation of IFASS participants;
• BCUCC: Mergers & Acquisitions – The premise for separate accounting methods;
• Research on pensions: Hybrid plans; and
• Interpretation issues regaring IAS 24 Related Party Disclosures and IAS 12 Income Taxes.

The next meeting of the IFASS will take place in Mumbai on 12 and 13 April 2018.

Please click for the full report from the meeting.

For banks starting to report under IFRS 9 in 2018, the 2018 EU-wide stress test takes into account the impact of the implementation of IFRS 9 on 1 January 2018 both in terms of starting point and projections.

The stress test exercise will be formally launched in January 2018 and the results to be published by 2 November 2018.

Please click for more information on the EBA website.

The summary is very short as the meeting mainly served as an introduction and offered a short overview over operating procedures.

Please click to access the two page summary on the IASB website.

An agenda and details on how to register for the meetings can be found on the EFRAG website.

Below is an analysis of all changes made to the work plan since our last analysis on 27 October 2017.

Major projects

• A new project Management commentary (Wider corporate reporting) has been added to the IASB's agenda. The aim of the project is to review and update the Management Commentary Practice Statement issued in 2010 to help address the lack of alignment and integration between wider corporate reporting and financial reporting. The next project step will be an exposure draft, however, the Board is still considering the timetable for the publication of the ED.
• Definition of material - feedback on the ED is now expected in February 2018 (was: first quarter of 2018)

Main­te­nance projects

• Improvements arising from the post-implementation review of IFRS 8 — The feedback received on the ED revealed that respondents had mixed views on the proposals, and Board member views were also mixed. It was suggested during the Board's discussions at the November meeting that if the proposals ended up creating more problems, then the Board should consider not finalising them. If it was decided to reject only some of the proposals, the staff should then assess the costs and benefits of proceeding with finalising the remaining proposals. A decision on the project direction is expected in January 2018.

Research projects

• no changes

Other projects

• IFRS Taxonomy update for the annual improvements 2017 — new entry added to work plan. A proposed update is expected in November 2017.

The above is a faithful com­par­i­son of the IASB work plan at 27 October 2017 and at 16 November 2017. For access to the current IASB work plan at any time, please click here.

The Board discussed four topics.

Primary Financial Statements

The Board supported refining the definition of investing income and expenses, providing a list of items that would be included or excluded from the investing category and renaming the investing category as ‘income from investments’. However, the Board did not support Labelling the subtotal above the ‘income from investments’ section as ‘operating profit’. 

There was an extended discussion about where the share of profit or loss from associates and joint ventures should be reported, and whether that should depend on whether the associate or joint venture is ‘integral’ to the reporting entity. No clear view emerged. The planned Discussion Paper will set out the pros and cons of different approaches.

The Board supported recommendations simplifying the composition of finance income/expense, clarifying what constitutes financing activities and using cash and cash equivalents as a proxy for excess cash. 

The Board narrowly agreed with renaming the two categories of OCI which would mean abandoning the use of the term ‘other comprehensive income’.

Wider Corporate Reporting

The Board decided to add a new project to its work programme called Wider Corporate Reporting. The focus of the project will be the Practice Statement issued in 2010 on Management Commentary which the Board will review and update to help address the lack of alignment and integration between wider corporate reporting and financial reporting.

Improvements IFRS 8 Operating Segments

The Board published Exposure Draft Improvements IFRS 8 Operating Segments (Proposed amendments to IFRS 8 and IAS 34) in March 2017. The Board had a preliminary discussion of the feedback received, but did not make any decisions. Respondents had mixed views on the proposals, and Board member views were also mixed. Several Board members cautioned against broadening the scope of the project in the light of the feedback received on the IFRS 8 PIR which indicated that IFRS 8 was generally working well.  The staff will provide recommendations at a future meeting.

Dynamic Risk Management

The Board generally supported developing a cash flow hedge accounting model for accounting for dynamic risk management.  Board members emphasised the need to test the model with stakeholders early in the process and get early feedback on its feasibility before the Board invests more time and resources in developing it.

Please click to access the detailed notes taken by Deloitte observers for the entire meeting.

The report examines progress across a sample of developing countries and aims to give select insights into the current status quo of IPSAS adoption, identifying commonalities and emerging issues. Specifically the study considers the adoption of IPSAS focusing on the date of announcement and date of adoption, an overview of progress to date, success factors, and challenges experienced.

The report can be downloaded from the ACCA website.

The agenda for the meeting including a public outreach meeting on the third day is sum­marised below:

Agenda papers from this meeting are available on the IASB's website.

These recommendations called for action by all relevant stakeholders and included a target of 33% women on FTSE 350 boards and 33% women in FTSE 100 leadership teams (comprising the executive committee and direct reports to the executive committee) by 2020.

This year the recommendations extend the target of 33% women to include FTSE 250 leadership teams by 2020.

The report also highlights a need for step change in pace as, with just under a third of FTSE 350 leadership roles going to women in the past year, this falls short of what is required to achieve the target. The review estimates that 40% of all appointments need to go to women over the next three years to achieve the 33% target.

The data collected shows that there was a minimal increase in the number of women on the combined executive committee and their direct reports in the FTSE 100 during the year (up from 25.1% last year to 25.2% this year).

Better progress was noted for Women on Boards. In the FTSE 100 the number of women on boards was up to 27.7% compared to 26.6% last year. Over a third of the FTSE 350 are already at 33% or more, or ‘on track’ to reach that target by 2020. There are now 10 all-male boards, including two recent additions at the beginning of November 2017.

A press release is available on the BEIS website here. The full report is available on the BEIS website here.  A recent report from Cranfield School of Management is available here.