2015 Agenda consultation

Date recorded:

Draft work plan: Advisory Council Feedback — Agenda paper 24

Background

The Board developed its draft work plan to 2021 in May 2016. The plan was discussed with the IFRS Advisory Council in June 2016 and will be discussed with ASAF in July 2016. The purpose of this session is for the staff to present the comments received from the Advisory Council and provide an oral update on comments received from ASAF. The staff will also present the feedback received from the Global Preparers Forum (GPF).

The Board will be asked to comment on the revised draft work plan which is included in Appendix A of this agenda paper.  The staff plans to bring for discussion at future meetings a draft of the feedback statement which will include points suggested by the Advisory Council.

Feedback from the Advisory Council

The staff indicates that the Advisory Council was supportive of the Board’s work plan strategy which will focus on (i) increase communication effectiveness; (ii) implementation and support of consistent application; and (iii) design the research programme to make it realistic and achievable. The Advisory Council also suggested that the Board should clearly communicate that the work plan is flexible to address emerging issues and the next period will focus on implementation activities (which could lead to a busy period rather than one of calm).

The Advisory Council agreed with the key factors considered by the Board in developing the research programme. The Advisory Council agreed with (i) evidence-gathering is a major function of the Board research’s activities; (ii) the proposed reduction in the number of active research projects; (iii) the setting up of a research pipeline. The Advisory Council did not object to the composition of the active research programme and the research pipeline. The Advisory Council also suggested that the Board should: (i) explain how research forms an integral part of its technical activities; (ii) explain how some projects from the research programme will become standard-setting projects; and (iii) clarify the process for starting work on projects that are in the research pipeline.

Feedback from the GPF

The staff noted that some members objected to not including in the draft work plan topics related to (i) problems that can arise from the interaction between IAS 29 and IAS 21; and (ii) deferred tax on intercompany transfer of assets.

Presentation of the work plan

The staff suggest to introduce some changes in the presentation of the work plan. The changes are: (i) present the active research programme and the standard-setting projects in one table; (ii) include the next project milestone; (iii) present first projects that focus on communication; and (iii) present the research programme separately.

Discussion

No significant comments or issue was raised during the discussion. The comments were mostly administrative in terms of how to present the information. The Board members thought that the new presentation of the work plan was a better communication vehicle. Some Board members stressed the importance of updating the information, and setting out clear objectives (particularly in terms of expectations). There was some discussion in terms of whether IFRSs should address issues of particular jurisdictions that might not be relevant for the majority of IFRS preparers (for example inflation). One Board member noted that the Board should keep maintaining communication with those jurisdictions to explain the Board’s challenges in addressing those issues. On the other hand the Chairman noted that the fact that some issues affect particular jurisdictions should not be a reason for not addressing them because are real economic issues. He noted that the issue was related to the lack of capacity to address all issues. Some Board members expressed concern for not doing any more work on issues identified in the IFRS 3 PIR; while others noted that the advisory council was supportive of their approach and accordingly, the Board should not take on additional work.

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