Is it a historical drama? Is it a romantic novel? No, it’s a never ending story of…

Classic Russian novels are famous for being somewhat large.

My copy of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” weighs in at 1,024 pages.  That is a big book.

Some day, I will get beyond page 20.

Dostoyevski’s “Crime and Punishment” is 448 pages.  I’m up to page 25 on that one.

According to a recent survey by Deloitte of UK listed companies, the size of IFRS accounts grew from an average size of 44 pages in 1996 to 101 pages in 2010.  That’s an annual growth rate of 6%, with a 7% rate of growth in the years from 2005.  The rate of growth itself appears to be growing.

So, just for fun, if you’re of a mathematical bent, and assuming that the rate of growth in volume in IFRS accounts continues at its current pace, answer this question:

How many years will it be before the page count in a set of IFRS accounts exceeds the page count for “War and Peace” and for “Crime and Punishment”?  The answer is at the bottom of this item.

Within all this bulk (which Deloitte criticises as being “swimming in words”), there is some notably useful information, such as 90% of companies clearly identified an average of 7 key performance indicators, up from 84% in 2009.

4% of companies (2009: 7%) received a modified audit opinion relating to going concern.

Surprisingly, only 35% of companies fully complied with the UK’s Combined Code on corporate governance.  That leaves a fair bit of explaining to do, on the “comply or explain” approach.

If you’re interested in the answer to the question of how many years will it be before the page count in a set of IFRS accounts exceeds the page count for “War and Peace” and for “Crime and Punishment” then IFRS accounts, at their current rate of paper busting growth, will be longer than “War and Peace” in 35 years and “Crime and Punishment” in a mere 22 years.