Summary of Governing Council meeting 29 August 2023

1. Chief Executive Officer

• Council welcomed RICS’ new CEO, Justin Young. He gave an update on his early impressions and immediate plans. These included:
  • An absolute focus on members.
  • More interaction with government, ensuring that we show that self-regulation is effective and working well.
  • Ensuring RICS is set up to deliver the Council’s priorities.
  • Addressing the need for more APC assessors.
• He ended by promising strong dialogue between RICS’ executive and the Governing Council.

2. RICS Board

• The Board is pushing to get the executive team in place quickly so that RICS can focus on improving its operations.
• The Board is also considering operational priorities and how best to allocate resources to meet them.

ACTION: The RICS Board will share these priorities and progress with Governing Council at the November meeting.

3. Performance and Budget

• Council reviewed progress against this year’s budget.
• Business planning for next year is underway.
• Governing Council reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring face-to-face events are part of RICS’ core membership offer as the best near-term opportunity to reflect new levels of member engagement.

ACTION: Council will receive a report in November.

4. Information Technology

• The Technology and Change leadership team are working on developing our medium term (2 year) technology strategy, alongside annual business planning and the team will report to Council in November. This will include key performance indicators to enable Council to judge the progress and success of the technology strategy.
• Council expressed concern over the lack of a definitive plan with clearly stated outcomes. It also wanted to see more forward thinking, rather than simply reacting to issues.

ACTION: IT to present dates and deadlines for improvements in November.

5. Standards and Regulation

• Interim Chair Nigel Clarke had been speaking to stakeholders in and outside RICS to ensure they had confidence in the Standards and Regulation Board (SRB).
• The RICS CEO had also been talking to government departments with the aim that RICS would now have a more open, ongoing dialogue with government.

ACTION: A call-in Q&A with Council and SRB leadership will take place (11 September).

6. KPI and Reporting Working Group

• Governing Council heard from the working group who are looking at improving and streamlining the reporting mechanisms to Council by both the RICS Board and SRB to gain consistency, the ability to benchmark progress, and the opportunity to see if resources need to be adjusted to stay on track with Council’s 3-year strategy.

ACTION: A beta test of this reporting structure will be tried out at the November meeting with a report on findings in November.

7. Nomination and Remuneration Committee (NRC)

• NRC was in the process of reviewing the Governing Council election process following the last elections and would report to November Council with recommendations.
• There had been a series of interviews with a cross-section of candidates, as well as feedback from individuals.
• The NRC also wanted to understand some technology issues that had been raised.

ACTION: NRC will report to Council in November with recommendations.

8. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

• Council welcomed improved DEI support for members, and noted that a range of CPD support was now available at no extra charge, while a partnership with the Supply Chain Sustainability School would give all RICS firms free access to their DEI Survey, the largest benchmarking data set for Construction and FM in the UK.

9. Sustainability

• Council expressed support for RICS’ status as an official observer at COP28, and a planned programme of engagement meetings with key global stakeholder bodies.
• Council welcomed the second edition of the Whole Life Carbon Assessment standard, noting that surveyors are critical to measuring embodied carbon, and there was potential for the profession to develop new services.

ACTION: President Elect Tina Paillet will be primary spokesperson for RICS at COP28.