What is it about teachers?
You know what they are like. If your teachers were anything like mine you’ll recognise this. By and large they are bright and sunny but when someone misbehaves they come over all serious and Victorian. Someone let’s off a stink bomb in assembly. The (alleged) perpetrator is apprehended. The teacher’s face falls. This is accompanied by an enquiry in a sepulchral voice: “Why did you do that, boy?”
The boy (and let me make clear this was never me, I am a stink-bomb innocent) knows that no matter what excuse is proffered it will not suffice. Teacher just won’t accept excuses.
Now I am not a teacher but when I ask of companies: “Why did you do that?” regarding their assurance I am left none the wiser. Few companies explain why they have commissioned assurance or what they hope to get out of it.
Of the 47 FTSE100 companies who had their reports assured I could find only ten who explained clearly why they had commissioned assurance.
With some of the others I could guess why, but that is not the point.
I can see the point in self-basting chickens but I don’t see the point in self-basting assurance. If you are going to use the shareholders’ cash to assure, at least explain to them and to the readers why you have done so.
With the ten who did explain I felt on solid ground. For me at least their explanations of why they assured were as enlightening as the assurance itself.
I award the Clement Attlee prize for concision to Aviva for its eight word explanation of its assurance: “Providing assurance that our actions match our word”.
Bingo!