The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is seeking participants for a project run by its Financial Reporting Lab which will look at accounting policy disclosures and the integration of related financial information.

The Lab, which was set up to provide a collaborative environment for companies, investors and analysts to discuss innovations in corporate reporting, is asking for views on the most effective approaches to reporting, focusing on both the content and the style of presenting information.

Aspects of accounting disclosure policy which will be put under the microscope include omitting disclosure of policy information that is not significant to the company; cutting out or enhancing boilerplate text; and the disclosure of policies required or to be adopted under IFRS, policy choices and key underlying assumptions.

Specific issues under consideration include the ordering of footnotes to the financial statements, which the FRC says is an issue when companies integrate accounting policy disclosure with detailed footnote disclosure. The project will look at options such as integrating separate notes on the same topic (combining notes on tax expense and tax assets/liabilities, for example) and different approaches to ordering the notes and their content.

The Lab project will also consider linking or integrating related information on policies and their application, the resulting financial statement information, and the financial review.

The FRC is looking for a number of listed companies to provide example reporting and to discuss the rationale behind the content and format used. These examples will be tested with the investment community through a series of meetings facilitated by the Lab. Potential participants have a month in which to register their interest by email at: [email protected], or should contact Sue Harding by telephone on 020 7492 2442.