Madam/Dear Sir,

Standardisation of Guidance Notes issued under the authority of the Council

The Council at its 349th meeting held on 17th-18th January, 2016 has taken the following decisions in respect of standardisation of Guidance Notes issued under the authority of the Council:

1.   The basic structure of the Guidance Note may include guidance on the Background/Introduction, Scope, Objective etc. so as to give the reader a brief idea of the topic for which the guidance is being provided. Thereafter, the descriptive narrative for the guidance may be followed. However, as the narrative related to the guidance on the topic is subject-specific, it should be left to the wisdom of the Committee concerned.

2.   As far as possible, all the paragraphs in a Guidance Note should be numbered consecutively.

3.   There should be a scheme for numbering of the Guidance Notes and these numbers should be allocated by the Publication Department of the Institute since it also issues an ISBN number for each publication printed by it. Further, Guidance Notes on Accounting may continue to be numbered as per the existing scheme in vogue i.e. GN(A) (year of issue/revision). The Council suggested Guidance Note on Auditing may be GN (A&AS) (year of Issue/Revision) while those related to taxation audit may be GN (TA) (year of Issue/Revision) etc.

The Council, at its 353rd meeting held on 2nd-4th May, 2016 took the following further decisions on the above subject:

4.   The draft Guidance Note should be exposed for public comments for a period of at least 30 days so that input from large stakeholders may be taken into account. For this purpose, mass emails should be sent to all the members informing that an exposure draft of a Guidance Note was open for public comments to reach the major stakeholders.

5.   All Regional Councils and major branches should also be requested to constitute their study groups for considering the exposure draft of Guidance Notes issued for public comments and send their comments to the concerned Committee/Board for consideration such that inputs from large stakeholders may be taken into account.

6.   In exceptional cases, when it is not possible to issue an exposure draft owing to paucity of time, since a Guidance Note is to be issued urgently, the draft Guidance Note may be placed for the consideration of the Council with the approval of the President-in-office.

The above decisions of the Council may please be complied with while issuing a Guidance Note.