Transparency and Excellence in Annual Reporting

Background

An annual report is a key means by which an entity tells the story of its year.  Public annual reporting, done well, enables stakeholders to understand – with trust and confidence – an entity’s strategy and the risks it faces, how much money has been spent and on what, and what has been achieved as a result.  It enables stakeholders to hold the entity to account effectively.

In each year since 2020 the C&AG has published a report on annual reporting, accompanied in each year by a Good Practice Guide.  The C&AG has also sought to encourage and to share best practice through delivery of workshops, the publication of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and the publication of Annual Report Self-Assessment Tools.

Transparency and Excellence in Annual Reporting publications have been based on the C&AG’s review of the annual reports and, where available publicly, the annual accounts produced by the States of Jersey, States controlled entities and entities established by the States.

Her reports considered the content of all the annual reports and accounts reviewed against an annually updated set of criteria that encompassed:

• minimum content that Lynn Pamment CBE considers to be best practice for accountability to public stakeholders

• essential elements of a good annual report; and
• over-arching principles for good public reporting.

Since the C&AG started her work in this area in 2020, most entities reviewed have made year on year improvements to their annual reports.

In 2024, for the 2023 annual reports, she noted improvements in 65% of entities reviewed.  However, Lynn Pamment also noted that the rate of improvement was slowing.

In overall terms 75% of 2023 annual reports reviewed were judged as good or fair against the best practice standards and principles that have been identified (30 out of 40 entities reviewed).  This compares to 76% of 2022 annual reports reviewed (29 out of 38 entities reviewed).

Scope

This review will focus on the annual reports of the States of Jersey, States controlled entities and entities established by the States, as publicly available on or before 31 July 2025.

It will consider 2024 Annual Reports against updated criteria encompassing:

• minimum content that I consider to be best practice for accountability to public stakeholders

• essential elements of a good annual report; and
• over-arching principles for good public reporting.

In January 2025, following feedback from use in previous years, the C&AG issued an updated Transparency and Excellence in Annual Report Self-Assessment Tool.

Essentially, updates aim to probe whether someone new to an entity can tell from the Annual Report:

• What the entity exists to do / deliver and how that fits with wider States and other objectives.

• How it operates – does the entity have staff / volunteers / contractors / trustees?

• What activity the entity has undertaken and how its year went, including in comparison to what it had planned to achieve.

• How the entity is funded or otherwise resourced, and how it used those resources against a plan / budget for the year.

• What risks and opportunities the entity identifies and how, in year and for the future, it is managing these.

• What the entity thinks is important to do, what it has done and what it plans to do, to contribute towards wider goals of sustainable wellbeing.
• How members of the public can be assured that the entity is well managed and held to account for its performance and any use of public funds.

In addition to the scored areas, in the January 2025 self-assessment tool the C&AG has expanded the focus on ESG with a useful reminder of frameworks which can be used for good practice climate and sustainability reporting.

This project will use a results oriented approach.

Unlike in previous years, in 2025 the C&AG does not intend to produce a report but, as before, the findings will be used to identify and share good practice. This will be undertaken through the publication of an updated Good Practice Guide and as the basis of the stakeholder workshop. 

2025, the Jersey Audit Office marks its 20^th Anniversary. As part of the special events for this year, the workshop will include the presentation of Awards to entities, to acknowledge high quality performance in a variety of categories.

The review will be undertaken as a desktop exercise with the detailed work carried out by affiliates engaged by the C&AG.  It will be informed by entity’s self-assessment where the self-assessment tool has been completed and shared with C&AG.