Government announces expanded reform programme to modernise corporate reporting

On 21 October 2025, the DBT issued a Written Statement setting out revised plans to modernise and simplify the corporate reporting framework as part of a drive to reduce the administrative burden of regulation on businesses. The government aims to bring forward legislation as quickly as possible to exempt most medium-sized private companies and wholly owned subsidiaries from producing a strategic report as part of the annual report and accounts, and remove entirely the requirement to produce a directors' report. The Written Statement also announces plans for an expanded review of the modernisation of corporate reporting to cover the whole of the annual report and accounts, on which the government will consult more broadly in 2026.

Also on 21 October 2025, HM Treasury published Regulatory Action Plan: Progress Update, which outlines a range of further reforms to streamline regulation across the economy (Written Statement). These include new guidance on the UK Corporate Governance Code 2024 to clarify that the remuneration of non-executive directors in shares is appropriate. The FRC will publish updated UKCG Code 2024 Guidance in early November 2025. In addition, the government has asked the Investment Association to discontinue its Public Register, which tracks significant shareholder dissent in UK FTSE All-Share listed companies (see Corporate governance, Q&A here). The government considers that the IA Public Register has served its purpose and is duplicative of transparency provisions in the UKCG Code 2024.

Short term changes to reporting obligations

The government intends to legislate to make the following changes to the reporting framework:

• a new exemption from the requirement to produce a strategic report as part of the annual report and accounts for most medium-sized private companies (see Accounts and reports, Q&A here);
• to eliminate duplicative reporting within corporate groups, a similar exemption will be introduced for wholly owned subsidiaries where the relevant disclosures are included in the annual report of a UK parent entity; and
• for all companies, removing the requirement to produce a directors' report (see Q&A here). Some reporting requirements (including in relation to energy and emissions) will be retained and moved elsewhere in the annual report.

Modernisation of Corporate Reporting programme

In October 2024, the government announced that it would consult during 2025 on streamlining the UK's current non-financial reporting framework and other corporate law reforms (see FC Feature 14 October 2024).

Having considered feedback from recent stakeholder engagement, the government has decided to expand the scope of its review of corporate reporting to consider the annual report and accounts in their entirety.  The reforms will cover reporting on remuneration and corporate governance, changes to the overall financial reporting framework and improvements to regulatory alignment across different reporting frameworks. The wide-ranging consultation planned for 2026 will also consider how corporate reporting should function in a digital age.

As part of the government's regulatory reform programme, the DBT has published a questionnaire to gather evidence on areas where regulation creates unnecessary burdens for businesses (Call for evidence: Unlocking Business). The government will use the evidence provided to develop new ambitious reforms to ensure the regulatory burden is minimised without reducing safeguards. Responses to the questionnaire should be submitted by 16 December 2025.

First published on the Corporate News Service on 21 October 2025

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