The Grand-parenting period for the acceptance of applications for Registration as a Chartered Environmentalist on behalf of the Society for the Environment expired on the 22nd September 2005, twelve months after the Society issued the Licence to the CIWM to deal with applications on their behalf. No doubt as a result of substantial publicity during July and August concerning the approaching deadline around 320 new applications were received under this scheme in the final three weeks, bringing the total number of applications for Registration to just over 800.
The members of the Assessment Panel were able to meet twice before Christmas when some two-thirds of the outstanding applications were approved, and 12 were referred back to the applicants for clarification or further information to be supplied. Members of the Panel met again on the 17th January 2006, when the majority of the remaining outstanding applications will be dealt with, just leaving a small number outstanding which the panel referred back to the applicant for clarification or further information. At the 31st December 2005 the CIWM had 495 members entered on the Register of Chartered Environmentalists, and a further 299 have since been recommended to the Society for the Environment for inclusion on the Register.
At the beginning of the grand-parenting period it was estimated that some 10% of the Institution’s eligible membership (ie Members and Fellows) might wish to avail themselves of the opportunity to apply for Registration as a Chartered Environmentalist a figure which at that time would have produced around 250 Registrants. It now looks as though the final figure will be greatly in excess of that, being around 800 Registrants or around 34% of the eligible membership, a very satisfactory result.
Nationally, as at the 31st December 2005, the Society for the Environment had 3395 names entered on the Register.
The Grand-parenting period having now expired, further applications made through the CIWM will need to comply with the full application process which will include the preparation of two reports, one covering the career of the applicant of around 1500 to 2000 words, and the second a project report of around 2500 to 4000 words demonstrating by reference to project(s) carried out by the applicant his/her knowledge of, competence in, and engagement with, sustainable environmental management and development with relevance to their own particular sector of the environment. The Society is currently reviewing and producing some guidance to assist applicants and the Licensed Bodies through this process. It is expected that this will be available in April.
The recently appointed new Chief Executive of the Society has visited the Institution as part of his familiarisation process. He has now been able to recruit a small secretariat to support him, (two part time staff commenced work in January 2006), and plans are now in hand for a regular information flow from the Society to the Registrants, using the Website and the Constituent Bodies’ magazines/newsletters. The first of these Newsletters can now be viewed in the Member’s Area of the Institution’s Website and on the Societies website www.socenv.org.uk
The Board of the Society, through the Finance and Management Committees has produced a new Outline Business Plan for the period 2006-2010. The Key Principles of this Plan are:-
1. Prudent financial base planning
a) Financial Base Plan has been developed predicated on “base-level” Constituent Body and Registrant recruitment rates for income prediction;
b) Additional work and projects only funded if higher recruitment rates and additional income achieved.
2. Focused Delivery of Key Outcomes that will make a difference.
Copes of the Business Plan and associated Budget were approved at the Society’s Board Meeting on the 26th October 2005. Copies of the Business Plan (15 pages) can be provided electronically on request to CIWM’s Professional Services Manager at mark.gibson@ciwm.co.uk
The Society has responded to a number of Consultations in recent months, and these are now included on the Society’s Website. Tracy Moffat is part of the Technical Committee that is responsible for making such responses. It has promoted an inaugural lecture and meeting in Belfast which was well attended and received, and a workshop was held in January to assist the members of staff in the constituent bodies that will be dealing with the full applications for Registration.
The Chartered Institute of Building has recently been admitted to the Society as a full Constituent Body, bringing the total number of CBs up to twelve. Discussions are ongoing with a number of other professional associations with regard to possible membership. In view of the increasing size of the Board of the Society resulting from new constituent bodies being admitted during the last twelve months, the Society has been reviewing its committee structure with a view to making its decision making process more manageable. It is likely that this will result in the day to day management of the Society being devolved from the Board to the Management Committee, thus freeing up the Board’s time for matters of policy and those important decisions that the Charter, Bye-Laws and Regulations require of it.
MRKG/mg
8th February 2006
