The Average Board Pack Is Now 226 Pages — and Fewer Than Half of Directors Get Value From It

Board Intelligence's board reporting research (1,000+ directors, C-suite executives and governance professionals across nearly 700 organisations; updated Jan 2026) finds the average board pack is now 226 pages long, up 30% since 2019 — roughly 6% growth per year — with only 40% of packs staying under 100 pages. Yet fewer than half (48%) of readers say their board papers add value; 63% score their packs "Weak" or "Poor", 54% say key messages are a needle in a haystack, and 62% find the management information too operational and insufficiently strategic. For SEA mid-market boards and advisory circles, the pack is the canary in the coal mine: information inflation without insight signals weak upstream curation and crowds strategy out of the room.