Many of Britain’s biggest companies are still taking a “tick-box” approach to try to achieve full compliance with the U.K.’s Corporate Governance Code rather than provide any “meaningful” explanation of how they follow the principles in practice, says the Financial Reporting Council’s annual review.

Neil Hodge is a freelance business journalist and photographer based in Nottingham, United Kingdom. He writes on insurance and risk management, corporate governance, internal audit, compliance, and legal...