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TAC Public Meeting July 2025: Meeting Summary
PUBLIC MEETING SUMMARY
Date: 8 July 2025
Time: 9:30am – 10:30am
Location: Financial Reporting Council, 13th Floor, 1 Harbour Exchange Square, London, E14 9GE
Attendance
| Name | Designation |
|---|---|
| Sally Duckworth | Chair |
| Craig Mackenzie | Member |
| David Harris | Member |
| Harriet Cullum | Member |
| Hilary Eastman | Member |
| Jeremy Osborn | Member (online) |
| Nick Rowbottom | Member |
| Peter Hogarth | Member |
| Scott Barlow | Member |
| Supriya Sobti | Member (from 10:20am) |
| Jenny Carter | Member appointed by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) |
| Paul Lee | Member appointed by the UK Endorsement Board (UKEB) |
| Daniel Makevic | Observer from the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) (online) |
| Laura Kennedy | Observer from the Bank of England (BoE) |
| Matilda Robson | Observer from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) |
| Sarah-Jayne Dominic | Secretariat (online) |
Apologies
| Name | Designation |
|---|---|
| Madeleine Evans | Member |
1 Welcome and apologies
The Chair welcomed the attendees to the July meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).
The Chair noted apologies from Madeleine Evans.
The Chair noted the following interests in agenda items:
- Jenny Carter declared an interest in discussions around resources given her FRC role, in which she has responsibility for some of the resources discussed in Agenda Item 3.
2 General reporting update
The Committee noted the July general reporting update.
3 Project Management Plan on ISSB consultations on: Proposed amendments to SASB Standards and Proposed consequential amendments to the Industry-based Guidance on Implementing IFRS S2 (IFRS S2 industry-based guidance)
The TAC considered Agenda Paper 3 on the project management plan for responding to the ISSB consultations on the proposed amendments to SASB Standards and proposed consequential amendments to the Industry-based Guidance on implementing IFRS S2.
This paper presented proposed project management plans to guide the TAC's review and response to the ISSB’s two Exposure Drafts. The first Exposure Draft proposes amendments to nine priority SASB Standards including consequential amendments to 41 other standards, and the other proposes consequential amendments to the Industry-based Guidance on Implementing IFRS S2 Climate related Disclosures. The TAC was asked the following questions.
- Does the TAC have any comments on the proposed assessment approach?
- Which project management plan approach does the TAC support, taking into account the Secretariat’s recommendations in paragraph 22?
- Does the TAC approve the selected project management plan?
The TAC discussion covered the following points:
- The Secretariat presented on the approach taken to prioritisation under each proposed project plan, and on a suggested exploratory survey for stakeholders.
- The full-scope approach was recognised as being too resource and time intensive to be realistic.
- The climate-only approach was recognised as being too narrow in scope.
- The proposition of choosing to do nothing was also considered, especially given the uncertainty surrounding the status of the SASB Standards within UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS; currently under consultation by DBT). However, this was dismissed on the basis that the TAC has received a request from DBT to consider the SASB Standards amendments and due to their relevance to the content of the ISSB Standards, both existing and forthcoming.
- Therefore, the Committee focused on tailoring the hybrid approach to best cover industries and topics most relevant to the UK market.
- Given the SASB standards potentially tangential relevance to future UK SRS, the committee agreed that the review undertaken should be principles-based and high-level as opposed to line-by-line opinions on the amendments suggested.
- It was agreed that a principles-based approach would also be beneficial in influencing the ISSB's approach to enhancing further SASB Standards.
- It was noted that the ISSB has not publicly published any of the work which went into the proposed amendments, and therefore their methodology and evidence-base is unclear. The Committee agreed that these materials should be requested from the ISSB to support a principles-based review.
- It was also noted that the TAC's response ought to make reference to comments previously raised by DBT and FRC about the due process applied to SASB Standards enhancements by the ISSB.
- Regarding the survey suggested by the Secretariat, it was requested that sustainability subject-matter experts be included alongside preparers and users, and that questions should cover whether the enhancements proposed will make companies more likely to use SASB Standards.
- The Committee asked the Secretariat to reconsider the proposed assessment criteria for the amendments (Paragraph 26), to facilitate a more principles-based review starting with the Basis for Conclusion and targeted at revealing whether any of the amendments would create problems for the UK market.
- To help narrow the scope of the review, the Committee agreed to focus on the proposed sectors most relevant to the UK market. However, it was noted that UK asset managers and investors do hold interests across the global economy including in the industries that the 9 priority standards relate to, so will need to appraise from both a preparer and investor perspective.
- It was agreed to add into the prioritisation principles the relevance of the industry to the UK market, and these would serve useful for future reviews of SASB standards by the TAC.
- The Committee approved the 'hybrid project management approach', with the following variations made:
- Focus on producing a high-level, principles-based output.
- Clarify the evaluation criteria to best fit a principles-based approach.
- Engage with the ISSB to understand the methodology and evidence-base used to propose the amendments.
- Streamline the approach to focus only on the topics most relevant to the UK market (which may include bringing some topics in from the full-review approach, but spending less time considering less relevant topics currently under the hybrid approach).
- Broaden the exploratory survey and further technical outreach to include the views of technical sustainability experts.
4 IFRS S2 Proposed Amendments: Due Process Summary
The Chair noted that Agenda paper 4 presents a brief summary of the due process followed in the development of the TAC's comment letter on the proposed amendments to IFRS S2.
The Committee approved the due process summary subject to a revision to the wording of one of the TAC Secretariat's research activities as follows:
- Reading ISSB Staff papers and watching ISSB meetings.
5 AOB
There was no other business.
In closing, the Chair thanked everyone for joining the meeting and confirmed that the next meeting is scheduled for 16 September 2025.
The meeting ended at 10:30am.