This page provides an introduction to the overall governance of XBRL International (XII). Figure 1 shows an XII Governance Organisation Chart:
Member Assembly
XBRL International is ultimately governed by its Member Assembly, a group of voting Members including XII Direct Members and Jurisdiction representatives, that provide oversight to certain key aspects of the organisation. The Member Assembly considers the recommendations of the Nominations Committee and votes on Board appointments. It also approves the budget and financials of the organisation and controls all changes to the bylaws.
XII Board of Directors (BoD or Board)
The BoD is the primary governing body of the organisation. The Board develops long-term growth & sustainable strategies, oversees the activities of XBRL International and makes appointments to the key technical advisory groups (the XBRL Standards Board and the Best Practices Board).
The (relatively infrequent) step of taking a body of work and declaring it an XBRL Recommendation is the responsibility of the Board, with the support of and at the request of the XBRL Standards Board. In this context, the Board seeks to ensure that the processes that help ensure that specifications are of high quality and fit for purpose have been followed. The current XII Board of Directors can be found on the BoD page of the XBRL website.
Board Standing Committees
The Standing Committees of the Board are responsible for the business of the consortium in the areas of Finance & HR, Nominations and the currently dormant Membership Development. Members of the Board are volunteers, selected for their seniority and overall understanding of the role of the standard.
The XBRL Standards Board (XSB)
The XSB has four main functions:- Formation, oversight of and dissolution of Working Groups (WG).
- Defining, prioritising, monitoring, encouraging and coordinating the development of specifications and other technical work products.
- Approving work product progress from one process stage to the next and proposing the final Recommendation for a specification to the Board of Directors for their approval.
- Reporting on progress and issues to the Board and coordinating with the BPB.
The XSB generally meets monthly, hears reports from working groups (WG), votes on work products/specification progression, discusses overall progress against the roadmap and discusses improvements and refinements to the technical roadmap itself. Find out more about XBRL Standards Board in the XSB charter. The current XSB members can be found on the consortium area of the XBRL website.
The number of Working Groups that operate under the auspices of the XSB varies from time to time. At the time of writing, the active groups are:The Base Specifications WG ("Spec")
This working group serves the XBRL community by maintaining XBRL 2.1, Dimension and Inline XBRL specifications and their accompanying conformance suites which includes resolving any interoperability issues that are identified. The group has also further developed other modular specifications such as Extensible Enumerations and Taxonomy Packages.The Open Information Model WG ("OIM")
This working group is working to create a simplified, syntax independent model of XBRL, in order to allow easy representation of the semantics of XBRL and the lossless transformation of XBRL data between different formats. In addition to creating the model itself, the group is working on defining a number of standard mappings of XBRL into several syntaxes, including XML, JSON and CSV.The Rendering Working Group ("Rendering")
This working group is responsible for the oversight, maintenance and further development of Table Linkbase specification. This specification enables the definition of an XBRL reporting template for data input and display of XBRL reports.The Formula Working Group ("Formula")
This working group maintains the Formula specification used for defining validation rules (XBRL Formula rules). The group develops further modular technical specifications to enhance the XBRL formula stack.The XBRL Best Practices Board (BPB)
The BPB has four main functions:- Formation, oversight of and dissolution of its Working Groups (WG) and Task Forces (TF). Permanent/long-term subgroups are referred to as "working groups" and temporary/short-term subgroups are referred to as "task forces" herein.
- Defining, prioritising, monitoring, encouraging and coordinating the development of guidance documents and other best practice materials.
- Approving work product progress from one process stage to the next and (finally) agreeing publication of the work product by XII.
- Reporting on progress and issues to the Board and coordinating with XSB.
Taxonomy Architecture Guidance Task Force (TAGTF)
This task force produces guidance around the different technical considerations of an XBRL taxonomy architecture. TAGTF guidance aligns architectural approaches with business goals and helps with the communication of reporting requirements from the issuer to the users.Entity Specific Disclosures Task Force (ESDTF)
This task force produces guidance to address Entity Specific Disclosure requirements in XBRL reports and taxonomies.Implementation Guidance Task Force (IGTF)
This task force produces guidance around all stages of implementation focused on business aspects such as taxonomy publication, project governance, roll-out plan, filing rules; based on real-world experience gathered from the global community.Legal Identity in XBRL Working Group (LIXWG)
This WG develops recommendations about the consistent use of Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs) within XBRL taxonomies and instance documents.
The XBRL International staff work with the Board, XSB, BPB and their respective working groups, task forces and committees to support the day to day operations of the XII.
