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Promoting high-quality corporate governance, reporting to foster investment remains FRC’s objective

The FRC has published its Plan & Budget for 2012/13 following the joint consultation with BIS from which the government approved proposals to provide the FRC with a reformed set of statutory powers which are now subject to Parliamentary approval. The FRC considers that the reforms will:

• enable it to address larger cross-cutting issues by bringing together work on governance, accounting and actuarial standards and audit;
• help it to join up monitoring work in the conduct area to identify new risks more effectively and to bring the most appropriate remedy to bear;
• enhance its international influence by engaging and deploying the authority of its Board; and
• help secure public confidence by reinforcing the FRC's independence as a regulator.

FRC Chairman, Baroness Hogg and CEO, Stephen Haddrill, declare in that:

"In the past, reporting has focused on historic data and past decisions. The financial crisis shone a bright light on the need for a better understanding of change in the circumstances surrounding a business and the risks it faces. Nothing rattles confidence in the markets more than the unexpected. And so much of our work in the year ahead, whether in setting standards or in monitoring
conduct, is about encouraging better flows of information on business strategies and risk to reduce the incidence of such shocks."