Cutting the clutter from your annual report

corporate governance, board governance best practices, corporate governance framework, governance, esg corporate governance

Cutting the Clutter from Annual Reports

A recent report by the QCA, 'Close the Book: It's Time to Cut Annual Reports Down to Size' is the latest in a steady flow of pleading seeking to reduce the reporting burden on listed companies. By comparing the length of annual reports to literary works, the QCA report helpfully puts into context the huge burden of time and effort required from the teams who prepare annual reports. This theme was subsequently picked up by Henry Wallop in The Times ('Time for some cutting remarks about ballooning company reports' 5 June 2025), noting the QCA's estimate that the average FTSE100 annual report - at 152,000 words - is longer than The Da Vinci Code. He also highlights an example of 865 working days being needed to complete a FTSE250 annual report.


The QCA made six recommendations for change that would be primarily regulator-led and Henry Wallop also comments on the wider problem of 'a safety-first, lawyer-heavy, compliance-obsessed economy’. The problem with recommending regulator-led change is that is does not necessarily change regulation or corporate behaviours. Many of the themes of the QCA report were explored in the Financial Reporting Council's 'Cut the Clutter' Report in 2011. The remuneration and climate reporting requirements which have been introduced by the UK Government and other regulators since 2013 have been the biggest contributors to today’s longer annual reports!



However, the companies that report, their auditors and other advisers can play a role to play in cutting the clutter. In 2024, Ceradas worked as part of a FTSE100 client team that managed to reduce the annual report page count by 50 pages. This reduction was achieved thanks to a joint effort that benefitted from clear leadership from the CFO and Investor Relations team, committed support from the external auditor and annual report designers and a collective willingness to put the energy and, particularly, time into thinking how to make the reporting smarter. This case study is described more fully in the Ceradas Insight, ‘How to Cut the Clutter: A Case Study’


Whilst there is still a pressing need for regulators to more holistically and seriously address the duplicative burdens that they are placing on large companies when preparing their annual reports, our case study shows that there are still steps that companies themselves can take to cut the clutter if they are prepared to put the time and commitment into doing so.