ACO BUSINESS NEWS Traditionally, this is the time of year when we look back at the previous year and forward to what the next will bring. Looking back at this year reveals that it has been a busy year, not just in terms of what we have been able to achieve in moving the ACO towards becoming an Institute, but in terms of the need to respond to respond to pressures from outside. For example, a considerable number of consultations thumped onto the consultations secretary's doormat this year and nearly ruined his summer holiday. On the face of it, this would seem to be good news: the Departments of Environment and National Heritage and English Heritage paying proper attention to Conservation issues. The Green Paper 'Protecting our Heritage' out at last. But what low-grade stuff it all was. The Green Paper thankfully laid to rest some of the more daft suggestions circulating about listing and the listed INSTITUTE STATUS The Department of Tracie and Industry has now agreed the name Institute of Historic Building Conservation for the new organisation. The Executive agreed to ACO's solicitors undertaking a legal search to check that the name was not already in use and to register it as a trademark. It was also agreed that steps should be taken to register ACO itself as a trademark to avoid impostors seeking to capitalise on a well established reputation. For legal reasons the new Institute will need a board of directors. It was agreed that members of the Executive would assume this role and be registered with Companies House. A training session to familiarise them with their new responsibilities was to be organised. It was also agreed that all members of Council and the chairs of all the sub-committees would be subscribers to the new Articles of Association, and hence would become the first members of the new body. The Education Sub-committee has now produced a draft protocol for admission to the Institute. As no academic courses have yet been validated formally (nor can be until the CONTEXT 52 NOTES FROM THE CHAIR building process, but failed to take the debate forward into the areas it really needed to. We have arguably the best legislation for historic buildings in the world (yes, yes, I know you all have your pet gripes about it, but face it: all our suggested improvements are small beer). What we don't have are the resources to implement it properly. Which is why so many of this summer's consultations, and especially the Green Paper, seemed so pointless. I thought the Green Paper was like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the ship remained fatally holed below the waterline. There was nothing in it to suggest the proactive conservation that is now central to most Conservation Officers' lives. There was nothing in it about how scarce resources for conservation should be directed to best effect. It was economical with the truth to the extent of completely overlooking the cuts - and, yes, they are real cuts - in English Heritage's budget for this year, which we understand are likely to be followed by cuts next year as well. This is surely what really matters. English Heritage has put together a largely sensible strategy for dealing with the heritage as a whole. Although we criticised it at the time, it has addressed many of the issues that concerned us and it now has a sensible, workable document and bags of expertise in dealing with grants for almost every aspect of the heritage. But it doesn't have the resources - the money - to implement it. Meanwhile, we have the unedifying spectacle of the Heritage Lottery awash with money and with no visible strategy at all. Our heritage deserves better and we need to stand up and say so. It will be shameful if the bulk of the money raised from the Lottery goes into creating NOTES FROM COUNCIL Institute is in being), the transitional admission requirement for full membership will be five years' practical experience in conservation. All existing members will be judged against this criterion. It is intended that the Institute will be formally constituted at the April 1997 Annual School in Canterbury. Many issues, some mundane, some significant, still need to be resolved as the transition becomes reality. The timing, location, and type of launch need to be agreed. The Publicity Sub-committee is examining the possibility of a major event in London during the summer or autumn of 1997 to avoid being swamped by a general election and also giving time for the new body to have bedded itself in. This might be accompanied by a series of smaller events hosted by consortia of Branches around the country to ensure that the message of the new Institute is spread as widely as possible. A new logo needs to be prepared as a symbol of a new organisation; stationery and publicity material will need changing. All these matters have financial implications; options within differing cost banclings are being explored. The Executive has taken the view that the launch is a unique opportunity to get the message of the new Institute across to as wide a range of influential individuals and organisations as possible, and it would be wrong not to commit a reasonable expenditure to it. The Executive passed a vote of thanks to the Institute Steering Group, and in particular its Chairman, whose many hours of quiet and effective work had brought the new Institute to this point. CONSULTATIONS The penultimate draft of the Consultations Sub-committee's response to the DNH Green Paper was endorsed. Overall, the consultation document was felt to be supportive to conservation; the main reservations concerned public consultation on new listings, and the suggested changes to the relationship between conservation areas and listed buildings. Other responses had been made to the DoE consultation onPPG7 (The Countryside -Environmental Quality and Economic Development), which was felt to be making the right approach to built conservation interests; and virtual heritage in our museums instead of protecting the real heritage in our towns, cities and countryside. Unlike museum exhibits, our real heritage is what we see every day: the buildings we enjoy as we go about our daily business. The buildings we live in and work in and play in. This is where the real public benefit lies. As someone in Liverpool said to me recently: "Why do they keep talking as if my heritage is something I have to visit - it's what I want to live with". But if people are to be able to continue to live with it, we must have the resources not only to protect it from harm, but to carry out the positive action that will ensure it continues to play a full role into the future. At the moment, I can't see where these resources are going to come from, but I can see plenty of resources which could be tapped into, if the will were there. Mary King the first round of the DNH review of the future of English Heritage (in which ACO expressed strong support for the work and objectives of EH). Not all these consultations had been directed specifically to ACO - notwithstanding their relevance to conservation work. The Secretary was asked to write to all relevant government departments asking them to ensure that the ACO was on their mailing lists. Many ACO members attended seminars held in the spring of 1996 by the Camden Consultancy which, on behalf of DoE, was examining the scope for conflict between listed building interests and other legislation. The Executive obtained a copy of the Consultancy's draft final report in August and expressed its very strong reservations over its proposed conclusions. In particular, ACO highlighted the lack of local government experience among the DoE-appointecl steering group; the lack of statistical robustness in the Consultancy's consultations and the conclusions drawn from them; and a number of serious misapprehensions about conservation law and practice which underpinned the consult39
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