Consultation documents continue to flow from various regulators, standard-setters and the like.  This month I have registered four as follows:

EFRAG - Proactive work plan

IASB - Fair Value Disclosure Requirements

ASB - The Future of UK GAAP

FSA - Amendments to Handbook

The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) is consulting on its Proactive work plan for 2011.  EFRAG's proactive work seeks to demonstrate thought leadership in Europe, promote discussion and debate on key financial reporting issues and influence the IASB's thinking at early stage in the development of IFRS.  Currently, EFRAG is working on projects concerning corporate income tax, business combinations under common control and a disclosure framework. Possible future projects include:

• European perspective on development of post implementation reviews
• European input to the IASB's post- implementation review of IFRS 3 Business Combinations
• European Input to the IASB's post-implementation review of IFRS 8 Operating Segments
• Post-implementation review of IFRIC 12 Service Concession Arrangements
• Government grants
• Understanding the decision environments of users of the financial report
• Application of IFRS to individual financial statements
• Performance reporting - Phase 3
• Share-based payments

The public consultation closes on 30 September 2010.

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has issued a consultation document with one of the longest titles I have seen ‘Measurement Uncertainty Analysis Disclosure for Fair Value Measurements - Limited re-exposure of proposed disclosure'.  In May 2009 the IASB's exposure draft Fair Value Measurement proposed a three-level fair value hierarchy that categorises observable and non-observable market data used as inputs for fair value measurements.  According to that hierarchy Level 3 inputs are unobservable inputs used for fair value measurement of assets or liabilities for which market data are not available.

In response to comments received, the IASB proposes to enhance the disclosure requirements to reflect the interdependencies between unobservable inputs used to measure fair value at Level 3.  The exposure draft is open for comment until September 7 2010. 

The UK Accounting Standards Board (ASB) has requested input to inform its impact assessment on proposed changes to UK GAAP.  The changes will be formally proposed later in the year in a Financial Reporting Exposure Draft (FRED).  The impact assessment will identify the costs and benefits of introducing a new UK GAAP regime more closely anchored in IFRS than previously.

The proposed system will have three tiers as follows:

In addition there will be disclosure exemptions for subsidiaries and small companies that would otherwise be categorised as Tier 1 or 2.  To read more about the background to this project see my blog published in August 2009.  The deadline for comments is August 20 2010.

The UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) is proposing a series of miscellaneous amendments to their Handbook.  Amongst other changes the FSA are proposing to amend the Conduct of Business sourcebook (COBS), to incorporate Recommendation 20 of the Walker Review on Corporate Governance, which requires institutions that are authorised to manage assets for others to disclose clearly on their websites or in other accessible form the nature of their commitment to the Stewardship Code or their alternative business model.  This deadline for comments on this proposal is September 6 2010.

If you would like further information, I have attached the various consultation documents and I would be pleased to read any comments that you might have on any of these consultations via the reply facility below.