The Board considered both issues that should be addressed in a longer-term project and a short-term proposal to permit immediate recognition of actuarial gains and losses in a different manner to that permitted by IAS 19. The staff recommended:

• a. that a long-term comprehensive project on post-employment benefits should be considered as a candidate for a joint project between the IASB and FASB by the joint agenda working party.
• b. that the Board should also proceed with a short-term project on post-employment benefits with a view to issuing an exposure draft around June 2004.
• c. that the exposure draft should propose that an option should be added to IAS 19 whereby, if actuarial gains and losses are recognised in full in the period in which they occur, they can be recognised outside income in a statement of changes in equity that includes only the items listed in paragraph 92 of IAS 1. Entities choosing this option would have to apply it to all actuarial gains and losses as currently defined under IAS 19.
• d. that the exposure draft should also propose:
  • (1) an exemption from defined benefit accounting for individual companies in a consolidated group
  • (2) the disclosure of the major classes of assets held by the plan and their expected rate of return and
  • (3) the disclosure of trend information.
  No other amendments relating to other issues considered in the project should be included in the exposure draft.
• e. that if the Board does not agree with the proposal for immediate recognition of actuarial gains and losses, then the following amendments to IAS 19 should still be proposed in the short-term:
  • (1) an exemption from defined benefit accounting for individual companies in a consolidated group
  • (2) the disclosure of the major classes of assets held by the plan and their expected rate of return.

The Board agreed with adopting both the longer-term and short-term projects under a and b above.

The Board agreed (13-1) to expose the option mentioned in c above provided the Basis for Conclusions states that the Board believes this is a temporary position, it improves financial reporting in this area as the balance sheet would reflect a more accurate position, and the actuarial gains and losses in the longer-term should not be in equity. It was agreed that the statement referred to should be given the name specified in the appendix to the revised IAS 1.

The Board agreed with the proposals in d(1) (vote 9-5), (b), and (c) above. It was agreed that the staff would also examine the recent FASB pronouncement on employee benefit disclosure to determine whether convergence could be achieved.