C O N T E X T 1 3 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 4 41 about tax incentives for conservationfriendly work (discussed by our chair in his report in this issue) to pressing the conservation agenda within the Farrell Review’s insightful interpretation of its PLACE agenda – Planning, Architecture, Landscape, Conservation and Engineering.We are encouraging the related Place Alliance, a cross-sector grouping of built environment interests that might be envisaged as a cross between the Heritage Alliance collective and the Built Environment Forum Scotland grouping of professional and third-sector bodies. Our focus on supporting members in public services – in the face of the unsavoury political climate they face, to the detriment of both effective and efficient conservation – has not waned. At the same time as we are working with partner interests and English Heritage to explore ‘benchmarks’ in local authorities that are already legally obliged to provide those services, we are also looking at how we might establish new processes to effectively underpin efficiencies there. This would be notably through more integrated and streamlined public scrutiny of development proposals, all of which should allow for better targeting of what we know will be diminished resources. All that work would be pointless – indeed it could not even start – without our established presence across these very diverse sector interests. Our credibility is founded on our substantial body of research carried out into local authority capacity and processes for nearly a decade now, which in itself has established the IHBC as the authority on conservation service standards across the UK. Our private-sector support still may be less well recognised than that for the public sector, but it is substantial and growing, from our Historic Environment Service Providers Recognition scheme to our select listing of full members in an online searchable database. For the first, we have just concluded our first sector-wide survey of such practices, already posted in our NewsBlogs. This creates a baseline for future market-defining data. For the second, the online member listing will serve as a checkpoint for practitioners accredited in a single specialist area of conservation (our future associates), helping both promote and regulate this more targeted accreditation programme. If this sounds impressive – and I think it is – I would encourage you to go back through my ‘Director’s cut’ columns to see if there is anything that could even begin to compare to this level of external interest in what the IHBC does, or the scale of support we can give our members, all without significant pressure on subscription levels. It is not that people have suddenly realised that the IHBC, our members and volunteers, are doing especially good work, or that our heavy reliance on volunteers actually makes us stronger as an organisation, not weaker; or even that suddenly the country is being better recognised for its historic role and future potential in shaping conservation. Rather it is that our consistency and perseverance in steadily growing our resources and profile have transformed your professional body. We need to grasp the implications of this growth and make sure that our structures respond. For example, when we began this stage of our growth with the employment of professional staff, beginning with myself, we had already missed critical opportunities to shape discussions effectively around changing heritage protection strategies in England.We are still trying to address that legacy of lost opportunity, with many ideas grown there still shaping forward planning in heritage policy, not necessarily to the benefit of either our individual members or our corporate ambitions.We should not place ourselves in that invidious position again: we need to prepare for our next stage of growth. That is why we are investing so much time and effort in getting our governance right, both for the new organisation and the new potential of the IHBC. If we are to ensure that we are not playing catch-up in policy developments on the ground, we have to shape the agenda at the heart of our membership, their issues, concerns and priorities. To set the agenda requires entirely different structures and strategies than those needed to follow it, and we know we need to change to achieve that leadership. We also know that our membership demands that ambition, as our recent member surveys have confirmed. We are very grateful to all who have contributed to these surveys. I am sure that the IHBC will be able to live up to those high hopes. Seán O’Reilly, director@ihbc.org.uk Welcome to new members The following members were voted in at the October 2014 council meeting.Welcome to you all. Full members Lucie Carayon (LO) Denis Cogan (EM) Jack Haw (NW) Adrian Kite (SO) Valeria Pasetti (EM) Kirsten Ryan (NW) Emma Sharp (NW) Jonathan Smith (SW) Ullathorne (NO) Affiliates Nicholas Bishop (LO) Graham Bishop (SE) Sarah Bridger (SE) Richard Broadhead (NW) Teresa Castle (SW) Chris Colville (LO) Bruce Michael Edgar (LO) Peter Egan (SE) Nancy Falloon (LO) Keith Frost (SO) Adrian Gascoyne (EA) Kate Green (LO) Nigel Hewitson (SO) Clive Hillcoat (EM) Nick Hutchens-Boll (LO) Isobel Jackson (NO) Patrick Maguire (SE) Serena Mahabir (LO) Brian McArthur (SC) Gavin McCall (RI) Rachel Morley (EM) Simon Nesti (NO) David Palmer (SW) Mark Pearce (NW) Claire Price (YO) Fiona Raley (LO) Caroline Rawlings (EA) Rhiannon Rhys (SW) Imogen Sambrook (WM) Zoe Sawbridge (SO) Llion Scott (WA) Colin Sellars (SW) Andrew Shenton (WM) Alex Sherratt (LO) Fiona Sinclair (SC) Lee Sloan (NW) Gary Taylor (EM) JackWatford (LO) NickWilliams (SW)
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