Closed consultation

Taxonomy consultation - your views sought

Published 8 October 2015

This closed consultation was withdrawn on 12 April 2019

This consultation has closed. Information about charity SORP is available on a separate website.

Applies to England and Wales

We are consulting on whether the content of the draft taxonomy accurately reflects expected reporting under the relevant standard - FRS 102 and the Charity SORP (FRS 102) and on the effectiveness of the tags created. The consultation opened on 8 October and will last 2 months to close of business on 8 December 2015. For your comments to be included they must be with us by the closing date. We would like to invite your views in particular on the tagging approach taken for the following 4 areas:

1. Transfer of funds on the SoFA

• This is presented as a single line on the SoFA. However, in order to reflect the movements between funds it was necessary to create a number of tags each associated with a dimension for charity funds.
• Your views are sought on whether this could be structured in a more efficient way?

2. Content of the Charity Audit and Independent Examiner Report

• Are the use of Boolean tags appropriate and their meaning unambiguous?
• Are the opinions and matters to be reported adequately and clearly covered?

3. Charitable activities in the Trustees’ Annual Report, SoFA and Notes and Disclosures

The SORP requires disclosure of charitable activities in the TAR, SoFA and notes. The following approach has been used in the taxonomy:

• Creation of a charitable activity grouping structure in the TAR to allow tagging of discrete activities and the associated figures.
• SORP headings only are used to label tags in the SoFA.
• In the notes and disclosures;
• Income from charitable activity tags are labelled using SORP definitions eg Primary purpose trading.
• Expenditure is analysed by activity using groupings for fundraising, charitable activity and grant funding.

Your views are sought on the approach above.

• Are activity groupings useful?
• Would an alternative approach using a generic activity dimension which allows tagging by description of activity eg concert ticket sales, provide a more flexible option for tagging for the TAR, SoFA and the notes? However, would this alternative approach compromise the comparability of data from one charity to another?
• Would, therefore, a combination of both activity groupings and a generic activity dimension be more useful?

4. Analysis and allocation of support costs across activities in Notes and Disclosures

SORP requires total support costs to be disclosed in the Notes, analysed by apportionment across activities and by breakdown of material items. This is often provided in a tabular format in the accounts. The tags created reflect this in the following way:

• 3 ‘Total’ support cost tags, each within ‘Fundraising’, ‘Charitable activity’ and ‘Grant funding’.
• Separate support cost tags within each activity grouping structure to represent allocation by individual activity.
• Separate ‘Analysis of support costs’ section to provide a more detailed breakdown of material items.
• Use of a grouping structure to analyse by support cost type for each activity.

Does this approach work or could it be structured more efficiently whilst still mirroring the disclosures required by SORP?

4.1 Submitting your comments

Once you have read the consultation documents please submit your comments:

a) Directly through the ‘Yeti’ viewer in which the taxonomies are displayed on the internet. This enables specific comments to be made on individual data items in the taxonomies. It is best suited to detailed feedback. A guide on how to use the Yeti viewer and make comments is available on the FRC website at www.frc.org.uk.

b) By comment letter to the FRC and CC. Such letters may be sent by post to FRC, 8th Floor, 125 London Wall, London EC2Y 5AS; or e-mail to j.guest@frc.org.uk and kim.andrews@charitycommission.gov.uk

All comments should be sent before close of business on 8 December 2015.