A message to the International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC)

Dear Colleagues

I have just sent this message to the organizers of the new IIRC ... International Integrated Reporting Committee. They were organized within the last year and have big ambitions and a lot of high profile people associated with them.

Dear Colleagues

The IIRC initiative is long overdue ... about thirty years overdue, in my view ... but better late than never.

Maybe I am too old to be helpful, but maybe not. I have been inside the accountancy profession as a Chartered Accountant, in the corporate world as a VP manufacturing, budget manager and CFO and a consultant in the area of official relief and development assistance (ORDA) being paid by the UN, the World Bank and others.

My observations over the best part of 50 years is that accountancy and statistical tools have increased in power over this time (maybe a millionfold) but the informational value of all these data are not much better, or some would say, significantly worse. Most of the initiatives to improve accountancy have been either quite marginal or worse, merely designed to suit some special interest.

In my view the data used to help guide society can be improved immensely ... and I want to see it happen sooner rather than later. The TrueValueMetrics (TVM) framework is a modest attempt to set the stage for a paradigm change in the way data are used to handle the state, progress and performance of society and all the entities that make up society. Simply put TVM has some of the rigor of money based accountancy, but using a value construct and not just money ... and having community (the place) the key reporting entity rather than the organization (which is always subsidiary to the place!).

This message is merely to alert you to the fact that I exist ... and that I will do all I can as long as I can to help get meaningful metrics in use throughout society.

Peter Burgess
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Peter Burgess
Meaningful Metrics for a Smart Society
truevaluemetrics.org
truevaluemetrics.com
blog: http://truevaluemetrics.blogspot.com
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You will sense from my tone that I am not expecting very much from this initiative. There are many people in their guiding teams who have very long experience with the reporting situation as it stands. Whether they have anyone in the middle of their community that is going to take a rigorous look at why financial and economic reporting has deteriorated so badly and put something different into play is an unknown at this point. I would love to join in ... but am not overly optimistic that I will be invited!

Peter Burgess