Question

What is the disclosure initiative? Are they trying to reduce the number of disclosures in the financial reporting package?

Answer 1

Disclosure means additional information other than those communicate through Financial Statement. These disclosures are some time mandatory in nature. International Accounting Board issued a discussion paper  on the Disclosure Initiative—Principles of Disclosure to obtained feedback on possible approaches to address the disclosure problem.The Board launched its Disclosure Initiative in 2013 to respond to feedback that there is a need to improve the effectiveness of disclosures in financial statements. Feedback demonstrated that the disclosure problem is multifaceted and will require the input of many stakeholders if solutions are to be found. The Board has already completed four projects as part of the Disclosure Initiative. These projects made targeted improvements to IFRS Standards and guidance.In this process they have already made amendment in IAS-1 & 8.

This project is expected to consider the following issues:

• The principle of disclosure for notes to financial statements - including the objectives and boundaries of the notes, and principles for the organisation, placement, format and linkage of information
• Information that should be included in a complete set of financial statements - focusing on the presentation of non-IFRS information and comparative information
• Differential disclosures and proportionality
• Cash flow reporting
• Disclosure of interim financial information.

Therefore we can say that project was not aimed to reduce the compliance burden rather for better practice of global accounting practices.