Responsible firm management, 1st edition (proposed)

Responsible firm management will be a new RICS global professional standard to regulate various aspects of managing a firm, such as terms of engagement, risk management, data handling, cybersecurity and bulk instructions. It will also update complaints-handling requirements and go beyond the residential surveying and valuation focus of the current UK Complaints handling professional standard, which it will also replace. 

The new professional standard will provide an essential and practical underpinning to the good-quality and diligent service that members must provide under Rule 3 of the Rules of Conduct. The standard will set general mandatory requirements on matters such as, but not limited to, terms of engagement, and will apply to all sectors, reducing the need for such requirements to be extensively drafted and repeated within every technical and sector-specific professional standard. 

The planned project will: 

• update complaints-handling requirements and expected practice
• expand the scope of complaints-handling requirements to cover members and firms in all areas of surveying 
• expand the jurisdiction of complaints-handling requirements beyond the UK and for a global audience, and
• expand the subject matter of the standard to cover not only complaints handling, but other aspects of managing client relationships and managing/running regulated firms, including: scope of work, data handling, quality management/assurance, risk management, cybersecurity, bulk instructions and client relationships (including through third-party intermediaries).
   

The forward-looking and consolidatory nature of the project is designed to support RICS members and RICS-regulated firms. The project is scheduled to go to public consultation in early 2027.