Department for Business, Innovation and 
                                                 Skills: 
                                                 Evaluation of the Companies Act 
                                                 2006, Volume One 
                                                  
                                                 Submitted to 
                                                 Fiona Hodkinson and Adam Gray, Department for 
                                                 Business, Innovation and Skills 
                                                 Prepared by 
                                                 Samantha Fettiplace and Rebecca Addis 
                                                  
                                                 Infogroup/ORC International 
                                                 Angel Corner House 
                                                 1 Islington High Street 
                                                 London N1 9AH 
                                                 www.orc.co.uk 
                                                 Tel.     020 7675 1194  
                                                 E-mail samantha.fettiplace@orc.co.uk 
                                                 2nd August 2010 
                                                  
                                                  
                                     
            
          Acknowledgements 
           
          ORC International would like to thank all fifteen stakeholders who took the time to participate 
          in depth interviews, providing additional context and their views on the Companies Act 2006. 
          We would also like to thank all 1001 businesses who participated in the quantitative 
          telephone survey, and particularly the fifteen businesses who agreed to participate in follow 
          up case studies on particular areas of interest that emanated from the research. Our thanks 
          also go out to Professor Brenda Hannigan of Southampton University, whose wealth of 
          knowledge of Company Law and expert consultancy proved invaluable to this piece of work. 
          Finally we would like to thank Fiona Hodkinson and Adam Gray from BIS for their assistance 
          with this project, and also Steve Dempsey from BIS for providing the sample database and 
          for his statistical input. 
          2 
           
                                               
              
            Contents   
                                                                                Page 
            1    Executive summary                                                  5 
            2    Introduction and objectives                                       17 
            3    Methodology 21 
            4    Profile of participating businesses                               27 
            5    Overall awareness and compliance with/ adoption of measures       33 
            6    Perceptions of individual measures                                60 
            6.1  Directors' duties                                                 61 
            6.2     The business review                                            77 
            6.3  Access to company information                                     88 
            6.4 Facilitating eCommunications                                       91 
            6.5  Enfranchising indirect investors                                  97 
            6.6  Simpler law/ accessibility                                        99 
            6.7  Resolutions and meetings                                        103 
            6.8 Company secretaries                                              114 
            6.9 Capital maintenance                                              117 
            6.10 Directors' residential addressess                               120 
            6.11 Trading disclosures                                             126 
            6.12 Register of shareholders/ annual return                          127 
            6.13 Auditor limited liability agreements                            133 
            7    Advice, guidance and third parties                              140 
            8    Evaluating policy objectives                                    159 
            3 
             
                                     
            
          9 Conclusions                                         184 
           
          4