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e information, it would be easier for assurance to assure that the non-financial information reporting is reliable and relevant.

ACCA, AccountAbility, and KPMG (2009) recommended that in the long term, there would be a need for a new blueprint that creates a reporting and assurance model which is stakeholder-focused, principles-based, integrated (financial and non-financial), applicable internationally, easy to understand, and economically efficient for business. In order to create this model for the future, accountants have an enormous role to play as they have huge responsibilities to shape the future landscape. Although the accountants have enormous roles, they have to be aware that they would need to work with other professionals, such as the assurers, in order to effectively and efficiently create this model for the future. Nowadays, both the standards and assurance practices are evolving. That is the reason assurance also plays a large role in information reporting (both financial and non-financial), as compared to the accounting side of the field.

Based on our analysis of the briefing paper written by ACCA, AccountAbility, and KPMG (2009), we would like to agree with the authors of the paper that the accountants, when developing their non-financial assurance knowledge, should work together with those experienced people who understand the non-financial impacts, since those experts are in a position to question about the choice of materiality and responsiveness by a corporate organization. It is important to have a clear assurance process and level of accepted professional value, which includes integrity and transparency in non-financial information reporting, since this type of reporting is still something new. The users of financial statement would be more confident towards the credibility of non-financial information reporting when there are clear process and standards for it. Without any clear process and standards for non-financial information reporting, the users of annual reports would not believe that non-financial information is reliable and relevant.

In order to fully understand the implications of providing non-financial assurance, ACCA, AccountAbility, and KPMG (2009) recommended that the accountants should be building their knowledge of social, environmental and sustainability issues and supporting the development of internationally accepted measurement and reporting standards. Detailed understanding on both non-financial information and accounting standards can help accountants to link non-financial information with the accounting standards. Users of non-financial reports are concerned about certain issues such as materiality, risk management and future proofing which should be properly addressed in non-financial report. Since non-financial information reporting is still new, the users of non-financial reports would be more confident if the assured non-financial reports have been given the due care needed and the recognized quality standards have been met.

In our opinion, integrated (financial and non-financial) reporting and assurance should be created in the future as non-financial information is becoming more and more important. One should not just rely on financial information as this information does not provide full information; non-financial information can have a large impact on financial reporting and assurance.

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