As the very latest report is? (4,2,2,4)
I believe the answer is:
bang up to date
'as the very' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot judge whether this works.
'latest report is?' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'latest' could be 'uptodate' (synonyms) and 'uptodate' is found within the answer.
'report' could be 'bang' (I've seen this in another clue) and 'bang' is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bang up to date that I've seen before include "Ultramodern" , "Completely modern" , "State of the art" .)