EDITOR’S COMMENT I’ve been really enjoying seeing young graduates posting on LinkedIn over the past couple of weeks about how happy they are to have passed their APC and to have officially become chartered surveyors. It fills me with hope for the RICS. Here are droves of young people who really want to be chartered, who want to be part of an institution and profession that has this great power to effect change.
But there is still this niggling feeling that the RICS just isn’t quite getting the level of transformation it needs to go through to ensure it can deliver for those excited graduates and enable them to do what we need real estate to for our communities, our economy and our planet.
The appointment of serial chief operating officer Justin Young as chief executive of the RICS this week is, I hope, a step in the right direction. Young’s CV – according to his LinkedIn profile – sets him out as an individual who knows how to transform businesses and processes, as a doer of things. Six years as a captain in the British Army hopefully also gives him not only the resilience to deal with the beast that is the RICS but the ability to bring order to the troops.
And therein lies one of the niggles. Those I speak to, who really do want the RICS to be turned around and who believe it is worthy of the effort to do so, still feel largely uncomfortable with its structure. That there are too many cooks, too many people (three chairs, for example) who want to have a say. Collaboration is key, of course, and no one wants a dictatorship, but when businesses need turning around, someone, somewhere really needs to have the power to make the decisions.
I know Martin Samworth, chair of the RICS board, passionately cares about fixing the RICS. And from his announcement about taking on the £300,000-a-year role, so too does Young. I meet members and employees and presidents – past and current – who have that passion too, but when you zoom out a little that desire starts to fade away.
Let’s take the recent governing council elections as an example.
The governing council plays – or at least should play – a vital role in the profession of chartered surveying. It sets the global strategy for the body and ensures it fulfils its royal charter. A charter, let’s remember, that a certain clause in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill could put at risk by enabling the secretary of state to investigate the work and power of the RICS.
Anyone who passionately cares about the profession and believes in the value and power of the RICS should be champing at the bit to either be on that council or have a say in who is on it, right? Well, no. Not really. This week I was told that if I wanted to see what apathy looked like, look to the RICS. The membership has lost faith and it just can’t be bothered. Voter turnout for the governing council elections was 7.5%. Of a 134,000-strong global membership, just over 10,000 could be bothered to engage.
Worse than that, the volume of candidates putting themselves forward for what should be really important roles was more than disappointing. Only one seat – the young member seat – had more candidates than I can count on one hand. And as I write, seats on the council representing building surveying, construction and commercial real estate remain empty.
It may sound like I’m knocking the RICS. I’m not. I do actually believe it is an institution that should be a powerful voice for this industry, that should be an exemplar for showcasing and ensuring that surveying is a fantastic, impactful and trusted profession. I do believe there are people within it fighting hard for that, but are there enough?
The RICS is in the midst of a fight for its survival and it needs soldiers to fight for it. Here’s hoping Young’s military nous will help redraw the battle lines and enable the real estate profession to come out the other side victorious.
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