The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has identified a number of problem areas including a lack of clarity and transparency about risk assessment and internal controls, while too many companies did not provide concise and insightful commentary when reporting against the UK Corporate Governance Code. Many companies ‘fell short in the quality of reporting’, revealed the annual review of 100 listed companies.

The review found that explanations often lacked ‘sufficient clarity’ and few companies reported to a consistently high standard.

Too many companies used boilerplate reporting with generic language that failed to meet stakeholder needs for meaningful explanations about how alternative governance arrangements benefited the company and shareholders.