54 C O N T E X T 1 3 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 4 Full members Matthew Bentley (YO) Tom Gilbert-Woodbridge (EA) Trisha Jean-Marie (LO) Lisa McFarlane (NW) Peter Robinson (NI) Johanna Roethe (SO) JamesYeandle (WA) Affiliates Naomi Atherton (NO) David Black (SC) Richard Bland (SW) Helen Bradbury (EA) Tim Britter (EA) Declan Carroll (EM) Eleanor Cooper (SE) Stephen Copp (SC) Louis Courtis (SE) Rosanne Eardley (WM) Nicholas Ellis (SW) Welcome to new members The following members were voted in at the September 2013 council meeting.Welcome to you all. James Evans (LO) Jeremy Good (NO) Douglas Jack (SC) Erin Lewis (SW) Roland Locke (SO) Mehdi Naeimi (LO) Richard Noonan (SE) Glenn Ombler (NW) Hannah Parham (LO) Richard Quigley (NO) Geoff Rand (EA) Cat Rees (WA) Allan Robertson (SC) Ian Rothwell (NW) Hannah Spotwood (NW) Ian Storey (WM) AlexWheldon (NW) JulieWilde (LO) TomWilson (LO) SophieWood (SW) little ‘economic’ value to be affordable. However, the resurrection thinking tied to PPG 16-styled privatisation and shared services, mooted in the failed legislation around heritage protection reform and echoing the widely-rejected proposals offered by the DCMS in response to the Penfold Review, also should also not be ignored. Sadly, those national statements on the potential of private-sector efficiencies in conservation have consistently ignored just how much the IHBC has done already to build conservation capacity through integrating delivery across both private and public sectors. The IHBC’s response to the Penfold Review stated our position perfectly clearly. ‘The same skills [as conservation officers] of balance and resolution can be available from specialist conservation professionals in the private sector. Encouragement should be given to developers to employ suitable expertise’. Rehearsing just some of our practical achievements here, and in my column in the next issue of Context, may help shape a more informed policy debate, and direction, than that seen to date. Our membership, which in both public and private sectors work to a single, professional and ethical Code of Conduct, captures well the role and importance of balancing private-sector operations within conservation outcomes. Clearly recent increases in our private-sector membership – with 61 per cent in public sector roles in 2006, but only 45 per cent today – register wider contractions in the public service. Yet the critical issue is that, by establishing the IHBC out of the Association of Conservation Officers, we have left behind structural divisions between representative organisations in the public and private sectors that are still found in archaeology (with the ALGAO and the IfA) and planning (the RTPI and the Planning Officers Society). Consolidation across public and private sectors lies at the heart of our organisation. Championing the private sector is central to our more recent priorities as well as our forward planning. The IHBC has established a simple quality assurance framework for private-sector bodies: Historic Environment Service Providers Recognition (HESPR). HESPR is geared towards supporting our private-sector member and business interests, and to tying their outcomes to the institute’s standards as well as our charitable objectives. Critically, it also recognises the ‘real world’ of business in which private-sector members operate. So we are not opining on abstract principles around ‘heritage protection’ from a distance, but supporting private-sector practice hand-in-hand with the standards – and membership – of public-sector officers, delivering ‘heritage management’ together. The IHBC’s leadership in establishing service standards for private practice has been accepted and endorsed by recommendations in, among others, England’s Penfold Review. Unfettered by presumptions about our public service legacy, Penfold examined the challenges, priorities and potential of the IHBC in the context of privatesector needs. In the most basic terms, Penfold recommended the skills sets and standards of the institute as a basis for private-sector practice. Again, it could not be simpler. Inclusive learning and training frameworks promoted by the IHBC are all designed to operate equally in support of conservation across both public and private sectors as well as across different disciplines. This means that private and public delivery can be based on common understanding, the basis for integrated and successful conservation outcomes. From shaping National Occupational Standards in conservation to advocating formal vocational qualifications, our diverse roles in shaping conservation standards across public and private sector have been substantial. The general absence of other national heritage bodies operating across these initiatives has meant that our work there has been all the more critical to shaping practice. The IHBC’s support for the accreditation of practitioners reflects our continued success in enhancing the synergies between private and public sectors. OurWebStarter offers an accessible route to the 30,000 or so pages of guidance, support and information on our website, with no expectations of sector origins or even discipline. The only starting point is an interest in conservation. Even that is not essential.We could not be more inclusive. Similarly, our developing TeamStarter pilots are under way or under consideration equally both in public and private sectors. Here we offer support and infrastructure to develop the skills of any teams working with or in historic, built or other cultural environments, again without prejudice or presumptions about private- or public-sector background. With these headline structures and standards, initiatives and networks equitably offered across public and private sectors, the IHBC is uniquely well placed to help inform and refine conservation management processes that work inside and alongside the ordinary activities of private industry. If anything will help address conservation capacity in local authorities, that work will. In the next issue of Context I will delve into these areas, and others, in more detail. Seán O’Reilly, director@ihbc.org.uk
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