Commentary Part 15: Accounts and Reports
632.The provisions of this Part replace the provisions of Part 7 of the 1985 Act relating to accounts and reports. The provisions of Part 7 of the 1985 Act relating to audit are replaced by provisions in Part 16 of the Act.
633.The provisions have been reordered and redrafted to make it easier for companies of whatever size to find the requirements relevant to them. In Part 7 of the 1985 Act the provisions applying to small companies are generally expressed as modifications of the provisions applying to large companies. These sections proceed on the opposite basis: where provisions do not apply to all kinds of company, provisions applying to small companies appear before the provisions applying to other companies.
634.A further change is to enable the Secretary of State to replace the detailed Schedules to Part 7 of the 1985 Act by regulations. This will give more flexibility to arrange the material currently in Schedules to make it easier to follow for different types of company. It is unnecessary and undesirable to have parallel and duplicative regimes on the detail for different types of company in primary legislation, but this could be done in parallel sets of regulations for different sizes and types of company.
635.The main substantive changes in this Part are:
	a reduction in the time limit for private companies to file their accounts from ten months to nine months after the year end (section 442);
	a reduction in the time limit for public companies to lay full financial statements before the company in general meeting and file them from 7 months to 6 months after the year end (section 442);
	new requirements for quoted companies to publish their annual accounts and reports on a website (section 430); and
	replacement of the general power of the Secretary of State to alter accounting requirements in section 257 of the 1985 Act by a general power of amendment by regulations (section 468) and more specific powers in relation to specific sections.