CMA Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards 2015 in July

The Institute of Certified Management Accountants of Sri Lanka (CMA) has organised the CMA Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards which will be held to coincide with the Global Management Accounting Summit on the theme ‘Business Resilience through Integrated Reporting’ from 27-29 July at Hotel Cinnamon Lakeside, Colombo. 

The main objective of the Excellence in IR Awards is to promote Sri Lankan companies both listed and unlisted and state institutions to undertake integrated reporting and to enhance the quality of corporate reporting in the country which will be beneficial to investors and stakeholders. The integrated reports are evaluated by using guidelines applicable in the International IR framework issued in December 2013. The evaluation will take into account not only the accounting and financial information but also non-financial information provided in IR.

Integrated reporting is new to Sri Lanka and there are no legislative or other requirements for organisations to prepare integrated reports. Therefore organisations include the principles of integrated reporting in their annual reports on a voluntary basis. 

The annual reports currently produced by organisations will be reviewed for the purposes of the Award. The International IR Framework will be used as the basis for the mark plan. The IR Framework was published in December 2013 and therefore would have been available to organisations for the whole of 2014. However depending when the organisation’s year end occurs, some organisations will have had more time to prepare their reports. 

This is the first year that the Award is being presented and therefore the panel of judges will view the reports from a perspective of achieving the integrated principles and not on a compliance basis. Furthermore, integrated reporting will differ from organisation to organisation depending upon the industry and the material issues faced by the entity. History shows that implementation of integrated reporting is a journey and that it takes organisations some years to be able to produce high quality reports. 

The reporting years for the different sectors will be as follows:Banking and Insurance Sectors 31December 2014; Other Sectors 31 March 2015.

Awards will be presented to companies after evaluating their Integrated Reports for the 10 best integrated reports in addition, trophies will be presented to the company producing the best report, runner up and third place. 

Certificates of Merit will be awarded to those companies fulfilling the criteria of integrated reporting. 

The awards will be presented in Colombo at the inauguration of the Global Management Accounting Summit on 27July in the distinguished presence of the President of the International Federation of Accountants Olivia Kirtley. 

Support for the awards has been received from South African experts where the Integrated Reporting has been made mandatory for all listed companies by SEC regulations. For the Global Summit on Integrated Reporting, support has been received from the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and International Management Accounting Institutes.     

Organisationsare invited to apply for the CMA Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards 2015 and to send in their Annual Report on or before 20June to CMA Head Office. Please obtain the application form for further details. 

For any further information please contact Shanthi on 071-4705536 or e mail: [email protected].