The IFRS Foundation recently published its 2025 Annual Report, bearing the title “Fit for the Future.”

The financial highlights, as summarized in the news release:

• The Foundation reported total comprehensive income of £1.3 million for the year, increasing reserves to £49.2 million. The results reflect the impact of the cost-reduction programme, continued cost management and fiscal discipline, as well as several one-off factors. These factors include the timing of some jurisdictional contributions and lower-than-expected spending on technology projects and recruitment, which have been deferred to 2026.

As always, it’s tempting to think that the IFRS Foundation’s annual report might be as close as humanly possible to a state-of-the-art document, and to read it from a correspondingly curious perspective. In this regard, the treatment of the aforementioned cost-reduction programme is of some interest. This is from the front section of the report, under the title Our resources and how we use them:

• The Trustees’ decision to create the ISSB and to consolidate several investor-focused sustainability standard-setting bodies resulted in changes to staff numbers. This decision prompted an increase in headcount, both to build new capabilities and to integrate colleagues joining the organization through the consolidation. The transformation programme that began in 2024 provided an opportunity to take stock of the needs of the organization as a whole and to optimize its structure and processes for greater efficiency and effectiveness. As part of this work, 76 roles were removed and new roles were created to support our future needs. Overall headcount reduced from 369 at the end of 2024 to 321 at the end of 2025…

The notes to the financial statements address the same item under Restructuring Costs:

• In 2025 the Trustees began a strategic review of the Foundation’s operating model to ensure it remains effective and financially sustainable as part of a transformation programme. It included a formal cost review, focusing primarily on headcount and resulting in a two-year cost savings plan targeting an overall reduction of approximately 15% in remuneration costs. Restructuring costs recognized in the year primarily relate to redundancy payments, notice costs and associated employment-related expenses arising from the reduction in headcount.

And also under Staff Costs:

• Staff salaries and related costs, excluding restructuring costs, decreased compared to the prior year. The reduction primarily reflects the effect of the restructuring implemented in April 2025, which reduced overall headcount. This decrease was partly offset by the annualization of salary costs for employees that joined during 2024. Staff costs were also lower due to vacancies that remained unfilled during the year, mainly within the ISSB staff. As a result of the restructuring and other workforce changes during the year, the number of staff employed by the Foundation has decreased from 369 at the end of 2024 to 321 at the end of 2025.

It’s interesting, I think, that the front section takes a softer tone, avoiding such terms as “restructuring” and “redundancy,” instead using the rather mealy-mouthed “optimize,” and the distinctly softer “removed,” which might vaguely imply the affected people suffered a kinder fate than a regular letting-go, and omitting most of the hard numbers provided in the statements. Not that the two narratives are contradictory, but the contrast provides an illustration of how one may sometimes find matters addressed more directly, if not coldly, in one location than another.

Writing last year about the 2024 Annual Report, I noted that the statements highlight as a key area of judgment “the lack of explicit requirements on the treatment of philanthropic grants in IFRS Accounting Standards, which necessitates the use of management judgement to select an appropriate accounting policy.” The area is in turn highlighted as a key audit matter in Grant Thornton’s annual report. As I set out before, the sheer volume of words expended on the issue strikes me as potential disclosure overload, albeit of an understandable variety: it remains tempting to think that any disclosure overload in the IFRS Foundation’s statements is partly conceived of as a contribution to discussions about disclosure overload. Similar thoughts arise from the following paragraph:

• The amendments to IAS 21 The Effects of Changes in Foreign Exchange Rates—Lack of Exchangeability have become effective for annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2025 and have been adopted in the current year. The amendments clarify how to determine an exchange rate if a currency is not exchangeable. Adopting these amendments did not have a material effect on the Foundation’s financial statements because the Foundation does not operate in environments where currencies are subject to exchange restrictions that would prevent conversion at observable market rates.

Such disclosures are certainly required when initial application has an effect on the current or any prior period, but in a case where there’s no such effect, and no one would have been expecting otherwise, they strike me as technocratic overload. But it’s no surprise if the preparers of the IFRS Foundation’s statements see that differently!

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.