UK Stewardship Code Corporate Governance Reporting Training Course

Course overview

UK Stewardship Code reporting is not a narrative exercise. Asset owners, asset managers and service providers must show the Financial Reporting Council how stewardship has been integrated into governance, investment processes, escalation, voting, engagement, conflicts management and client reporting. Weak reports often repeat policy statements without evidencing activity, outcomes or lessons learned; strong reports connect decisions to material issues, data and demonstrable change. This course addresses the practical challenge of producing a credible, evidence-led Stewardship Code report while creating governance arrangements that can sustain annual reporting.

Participants work through the UK Stewardship Code 2020 principles, FRC reporting expectations and the relationship between stewardship reporting, the UK Corporate Governance Code, sustainable investment disclosures and fiduciary duties. They learn to interpret principles by signatory type, build a reporting evidence matrix, distinguish inputs from stewardship outcomes, select meaningful engagement and voting case studies, document escalation, test conflict-of-interest disclosures and establish ownership for data collection and review. The course also covers narrative drafting, materiality, assurance readiness and board-level challenge.

Delivery combines instructor-led technical sessions with report reviews, evidence-mapping workshops and worked cases involving listed equity, fixed income and private markets. Participants analyse published reporting examples, identify disclosure gaps and redraft weak passages against a structured quality rubric. Each participant leaves with a tailored Stewardship Code reporting blueprint: a principle-by-principle evidence matrix, reporting timetable, RACI, case-study template and priority improvement plan that can be adapted for their organisation's next reporting cycle.

The programme is designed for professionals responsible for stewardship, responsible investment, governance, compliance, reporting, client oversight or board support within UK-regulated investment organisations and their service providers.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Interpret the UK Stewardship Code 2020 principles for asset owners, asset managers and service providers
• Build a principle-by-principle stewardship reporting evidence matrix
• Draft outcome-focused disclosures using the activity-outcome-learning narrative method
• Design engagement, escalation and voting case studies that evidence stewardship impact
• Apply a materiality test to select reportable stewardship issues and examples
• Create a RACI and annual reporting timetable for stewardship data collection and review
• Assess conflicts-of-interest disclosures against FRC reporting expectations
• Conduct a quality review of a Stewardship Code report using a structured scoring rubric

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Head of Stewardship — who must establish a defensible reporting process and demonstrate outcomes to the FRC
• Responsible Investment Managers — who need to translate engagement, voting and ESG activity into evidence-led disclosures
• Corporate Governance Managers — who oversee voting policy, issuer engagement and governance reporting
• Compliance and Regulatory Reporting Managers — who must coordinate controls, approvals and regulatory submissions
• Asset Owner Governance Professionals — who need to evidence manager oversight and beneficiary-focused stewardship
• Investment Operations and Data Managers — who supply the ownership, voting and engagement data underpinning the report

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have working familiarity with investment management or pension governance, including the roles of asset owners, asset managers, investee companies and service providers. They should understand basic concepts such as proxy voting, issuer engagement, fiduciary duty, conflicts of interest and ESG or responsible investment policy. Experience contributing to an annual report, regulatory disclosure, board paper or investment governance process is useful. Participants should bring, where permitted, their organisation's current stewardship policy or previous report. No legal qualification, coding capability, sustainability certification or prior FRC signatory experience is required.

Training methodology

The instructor uses short technical briefings to establish the Code requirements, then moves participants into report-review clinics and evidence-mapping workshops. Delegates compare published disclosure extracts with FRC expectations, trace claims back to governance records, voting data and engagement logs, and practise rewriting unsupported narrative. Small groups work through asset manager, pension scheme and service-provider cases, including conflicting priorities and weak evidence. Daily outputs are added to an individual reporting blueprint, which is tested through peer challenge and refined into a workplace implementation plan on day five.

Course outline

Day 1: Code architecture and stewardship accountability

• Purpose and scope of the UK Stewardship Code 2020
• Signatory categories and proportional application of the principles
• FRC assessment approach and reporting expectations
• Stewardship purpose, culture and organisational governance
• Beneficiary, client and stakeholder accountability
• Relationship with fiduciary duty and investment governance
• Reading published signatory reports critically

Workshop: Participants diagnose a published stewardship report extract and produce a gap log separating policy statements, activity evidence and outcomes.

Day 2: Evidence design, materiality and reporting controls

• Principle-by-principle evidence matrix construction
• Evidence sources across investment, voting, engagement and risk systems
• Materiality assessment for stewardship issues and case selection
• RACI design for data ownership, challenge and approval
• Annual stewardship reporting calendar and control points
• Data lineage, version control and audit trail requirements
• Metrics selection and limitations of quantitative stewardship indicators

Workshop: Participants build an evidence matrix and RACI for a selected signatory type, identifying missing data and accountable owners.

Day 3: Engagement, voting and escalation reporting

• Engagement objective setting and milestone tracking
• Activity-outcome-learning narrative method
• Collaborative engagement and disclosure of participation
• Escalation frameworks and decision-record documentation
• Voting policy implementation and vote-rationale reporting
• Securities lending, split voting and voting exceptions
• Selecting cross-asset stewardship case studies

Workshop: Using an issuer governance controversy case, participants draft an engagement and escalation case study with outcomes, evidence and lessons learned.

Day 4: Governance, conflicts and disclosure quality

• Board and senior-management oversight disclosures
• Conflicts-of-interest identification and mitigation registers
• Stewardship integration into investment decision-making
• Manager selection, monitoring and appointment oversight
• Service-provider stewardship responsibilities
• Consistency testing against the UK Corporate Governance Code
• Disclosure quality rubric and red-flag review

Workshop: Participants conduct a structured quality review of a draft report section and produce prioritised redrafts and evidence requests.

Day 5: Report production and implementation planning

• Report architecture and principle navigation design
• Drafting concise evidence-led stewardship narratives
• Using tables, case studies and metrics without obscuring outcomes
• Internal legal, compliance and investment review workflow
• Board challenge questions and approval packs
• Assurance readiness and supporting evidence files
• Post-report lessons learned and continuous improvement cycle

Workshop: Participants assemble their reporting blueprint into a 90-day implementation plan, including milestones, owners, evidence gaps and executive decisions required.

Tools & standards covered

UK Stewardship Code 2020, Financial Reporting Council Stewardship Code guidance, UK Corporate Governance Code 2024, Microsoft Excel

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions