16 Y e a r b o o k 2 0 1 1 Our more recent attempts to bridge the apparent disjunction between heritage and change may be linked to our: • key role in shaping England’s historic environment PPS into a document that can be applied proportionately to place management (the ‘historic environment’ in PPS parlance) • enhanced partnership with the National Heritage Training Group (NHTG), tightening the continuity between the construction and heritage industries, from trade and profession to practice and policy • contribution to the new NVQ for conservation technicians in the built environment sector, led by ConstructionSkills • development of the ‘Beta’ web resource for local conservation services (http://ihbconline. co.uk/skills/default.html), which highlights evidence of support for properly resourced conservation services in local government from mainstream clients, businesses, regulators and managers. These outcomes, past and continuing, are crystallised around CP10, which marks a special moment in our history and an even more special moment in our future. Looking ahead CP10 provides the basis for how we will move forward over the next five and more years. This is a crucial time for the organisation as we try to realign our agenda from niche marketing to mainstream thinking. We do not want to lose our own specialist, high-end niche position as ‘the expert’s expert’ in historic environment conservation. However, we do want to help embed the good practice that our specialists represent inside wider professional practice and across the construction sector. In the context of mainstreaming conservation initiatives, we can welcome, partner in and encourage, among other things: • the establishment by all the professional bodies of their own substantial internal conservation threads, both through accreditation and any other core training initiatives, not least the RIBA’s new register, and, allied to this • the continued development of the joint built environment conservation website, www. understandingconservation.org • the initiatives by NHTG and others to encourage carded workforces • developing S/NVQ and related training initiatives covering conservation training • more integrated information on structured training and educational opportunities of the kind our web calendar represents, for all professionals and volunteers, regardless of background. If these initiatives progress as we hope they will, that will encourage more confidence in, and better outcomes from, the inevitable government trend to relocate responsibility for the care of places onto the industry that created them, the construction and development industry. We are no longer in a 20th century environment, where conservation focussed on the prominent highlights of our past. Instead we have a much wider appreciation, active across the social spectrum, of the values on which conservation is based. In this context the current yearbook explores the subject of skills, the area that the IHBC and others see as the starting point for the definition of conservation standards. Widening conservation skills will help us pin down our connections to more substantial processes of change, such as those represented in Adrian Penfold’s report on non-planning consents in England, and stop us continuing our separation from them.1 England’s heritage protection reform focussed on linking heritage with planning. That is no longer enough: we don’t want to just sit at the heart of planning, we want to represent the heart of change. The educational ideas reviewed in this edition can remind us how, as conservation professionals, we are a small part of a much bigger process, and that the process works best when it has us working within it. Conclusion Education in conservation is central to the corporate aims of CP10, but it is only a part of it, and it certainly will not be achieved by our two staff members alone. At the 2010 AGM when CP10 was adopted, one delegate voiced their branch’s concerns for the future of our work given the widespread cuts, concerns that reflected those of the entire sector, and asked what we might do. CP10 was agreed as the basis for addressing these huge challenges but it cannot deliver anything on its own. It can only help the institute’s supporters to understand our plans, and guide them in how they might play a part in our work. However we progress, and whatever our ambitions, volunteers remain at the heart of our plans, as always. CP10 highlights the initiatives that members and others want us to achieve. So, as resources diminish and ambitions increase, it may not just be a question of what the IHBC can do for you, but what you can do for the IHBC. Do please download the plan from our homepage and see if there’s anything there you’d like to contribute to. It could be the start of a whole new educational experience. Seán O’Reilly, director@ihbc.org.uk Join us! Volunteers remain at the heart of the institute’s plans (illustration shows a meeting of Council at the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, Newcastle upon Tyne, September 2010) 1 The Penfold Review of Non-planning Consents, July 2010, www.bis.gov.uk/ assets/biscore/better-regulation/docs/p/101027-penfold-review-final-report.pdf
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