Post # 98
March 4, 2026
Claire Bodanis
The DBT’s Modernisation of Corporate Reporting Review should be coming our way soon. Claire explains how you can influence it; and gives an update on Trust me, I’m listed for the age of AI.
If you enjoyed my Christmas present (December’s blog with FW’s new model for corporate reporting for the age of AI), you’ll no doubt be pleased to hear that the Department for Business & Trade (DBT) is due to launch its Modernisation of Corporate Reporting (MCR) review* any time soon.
And, if you appreciated the principles of our own new model or indeed contributed to it, you’ll no doubt be even more pleased to hear, from my last conversation with our friends at DBT, that it seems our argument about the need for establishing a purpose for the annual report has been taken on board. As for the other principles arising from that purpose – the introduction of a two-part structure for the AR; the inclusion of only material information; and how the corporate website should be used – well, we’ll have to wait and see.
Come and join a discussion with FW and the CGI
The good news is that the DBT is very keen on ‘co-creation’. This means that, rather than simply publishing a consultation paper and asking for written comments by date x, they’ll be gathering feedback on their proposed model from stakeholder roundtables and workshops. And, in more good news, we’ll be running a couple of corporate sessions for them, in partnership with our friends at the Chartered Governance Institute (CGI), to make sure the essential view of report preparers is heard.
When? Late April at the earliest
The date? Well, it depends on when the consultation comes out – and once it does, there’ll be a three-month window for running the sessions. For the moment, we’ve said to the DBT that we’ll aim for late April, but that’s based on the consultation being published in March, and it may well be later. However, if you’re interested in taking part, please do contact my colleague Alex Brady (alex@falconwindsor.com) so we can add you to the list, pending dates being agreed.
Why? Because it’s a genuine opportunity to rethink reporting for the better
I said in the intro to our new model that I believe that the MCR is a genuine opportunity to rethink reporting for the better. The DBT has called it an ‘ambitious and holistic consultation’, i.e. it considers the whole annual report, not just bits of it; and it also considers ‘how reporting can be modernised in the digital age’. I’m pleased to say that they’ve used our very own Your Precocious Intern – How to use generative AI responsibly in corporate reporting, published last year in partnership with Insig AI, to inform the digital aspects!
So this really is the opportunity for change. And, if the consultation is as ambitious as it sounds, we’ll doubtless be living with the results for a very long time. So the more of you who take part, the better those results will be.
What has Trust me, I’m listed got to do with it?
Nothing on the face of it. But in last July’s blog, I promised that an updated version of Trust me, I’m listed – why the annual report matters and how to do it well for the age of AI (TMIL2) would be published in June this year. However, after consulting our publisher friends at the CGI, we decided that there’s no point writing a new version of this useful, practical guide for companies on how to do reporting, if the very thing we’re writing about is fundamentally changing. Don’t worry, you won’t have to wait for TMIL2 until the results of the MCR become a requirement – that will no doubt take years! But it makes sense to see where the consultation is going before starting to revise the book. It’ll probably be published some time later this year or early next, but I’ll give you an update when the MCR consultation is out.
Please contact Alex to take part in a feedback session for the DBT – alex@falconwindsor.com.
* What is the Modernisation of Corporate Reporting review? Here’s a reminder of what the MCR is all about. Last year, the UK Government resurrected its Non-Financial Reporting Review and consulted widely (including interviewing me) on how to improve corporate reporting. To quote their October email to stakeholders, “Throughout our engagement, it became apparent that the issues with the [reporting] framework went beyond non-financial reporting. Therefore, we are expanding the scope to include financial, remuneration, and governance reporting, as well as considering how reporting can be modernised in the digital age.”
The reason for all this is that the UK Government’s growth agenda relies on London regenerating itself as a centre for capital and the UK attracting inward investment. And many see deregulation – or at least the simplification of regulation – as a necessary backdrop for growth. To quote Blair McDougall MP, Minister for Small Business and Economic Transformation, in his letter (dropping the plans for audit reform!) to the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee in January: “We want to make the UK’s reporting regime the most streamlined and proportionate in the world, and will launch an ambitious consultation this year to co-design these changes with companies and investors.”
You can find the Government’s October announcement here.