The disclosureof corporate information about employees has its present basis incompany law in the UK and, as such, forms a statutory item in thepublished report and accounts of larger companies. The significance ofsuch disclosure is embedded in the fact that it serves several diverseyet interdependent objectives. As well as discharging theaccountability of the organisation towards society, disclosure may alsoprovide a device for monitoring corporate action from a regulatoryperspective where law requires such disclosure. Actions taken by theorganisation may also be legitimised through the medium of disclosure.Additionally in the context of reporting information about employees,the specific needs of that user group may be addressed and rights toinformation are specified in the various conceptual framework projectsreferred to in this paper. However, to be useful to employees orindeed to other users, information must be both available andsufficiently explicit to fulfil any of the previously identified roles.Thepaper commences with a discussion of the role of companiesâ?? annualreports in discharging social accountability. This is followed by areview of the history of reporting about employees before the extantstatutory requirements of the are debated. Next follows details of the empirical research comprisingof an examination of the disclosure practices of major companies todiscover whether compliance with the Companies Act takes place and theparticular detail or usefulness of the disclosure. Following theanalysis of the findings, the conclusion attempts to explain theactions of companies in both adherence and non-adherence to the legalrequirements and the wider implications of this research.