C O N T E X T 1 7 1 : M A R C H 2 0 2 2 47 • Agree the formal constitution of a new working group to advise the board on procedural and operational matters relating to the modernisation of the IHBC. Titled the Governance Stage 2Working Group (GS2WG), and established under Article 1 of the IHBC’s new constitution, its authority includes ‘as a minimum the encouragement to advise the board on the standards and next steps in governance and related matters’. All the resolutions help establish controls to encourage the tiers of voluntary operations under the new articles to develop their activities and operations without undue restrictions from an inevitably more risk-conscious board.With the board’s failsafe of the facility ‘to review or intervene where appropriate’, the suite of resolutions establishes a ‘magic circle of management by exception’, as the limited capacity of trustees is freed up to focus operations only where it should, or where needed. This approach is both light-touch and pragmatic. The resolutions are, as yet, supplemented only by outline and common sense guidance. For example, the guidance on presidential authority simply states that: ‘The IHBC’s president is encouraged to report formally to the board on matters from council considered relevant… and advise trustees on any matters pertaining to the council…’. All this, we know, will need refinement informed by application and experience. Inspired by the ‘experimental evolution’ successfully adopted in our IHBC+ programme from 2015–2021, our resolutions secure both the operation of the IHBC and our evolution. So, at the board’s discretion, their terms can be modified or supplemented, making improvement simple, as new terms can be informed by the lessons learned. In their final forms, these resolutions should represent best solutions for our own needs, and already sit as constitutionally equivalent to future byelaws, at the tier below our articles. Even more, while the actions offered and circumscribed by the new resolutions are all possible under the articles, it is only with these resolutions that the board can reliably progress the implementation of ambitions in our AGM-adopted Corporate Plan 2020–25 (CP25). That is crucial, as CP25 aligns our formal charitable objects with an operational focus on helping people, conservation and conservation professionals. By adopting these internal controls on power and spurs to action, the board is delivering on some of the most fundamental, and over-arching, commitments to our members. The next steps? The national office is charged with leading delivery on the ambitions outlined here, overseen by the board, and supported by all our officers, branches, volunteers and networks that together populate and shape our modern tiers of governance. The reader, hopefully, will have seen already some the developments anticipated here, and can judge accordingly, feeding back to all and any, and most easily and most effectively now as a voice at our council. Seán O’Reilly, director@ihbc.org.uk A late-18th-century Italian project for a villa (Image: Smithsonian Design Museum)
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