CONTEXT 188 : JUNE 2026 45 A view of the IHBC’s corporate planning CONTEXT 185 : SEPTEMBER 2025 51 Director’s cut Charter… or no Charter I must highlight a couple of qualifications to the title of this column. First, at this stage, only permission to petition – or apply – for a Charter is sought. That takes the form of our nowsubmitted Memorandum to the Privy Council Office, guardians of the chartering process. Critically, any permission received carries no guarantees on outcome. However, as the distinction between Charter and Memorandum might be moot for many readers, for convenience this column’s title conjoins the Memorandum and the Charter. Second, by the time you read this, we may all know the answer, or at least the questions the Memorandum has raised, so that is more moot. Noting that preamble, this column reflects how – with our wonderful Shrewsbury School now done and, almost, dusted (and with kudos to our West Midlands Branch for their work there) – collective thoughts here are turning back to just how the Privy Council Office might respond to our case for a Charter. And, either way on ‘Charter… or no Charter’, how we proceed after we hear its final determination. We have really been thinking about this for years, with the entire experience of the consultation, attendant research and investigation, and the drafting of the Memorandum all tied together by such considerations. But now, with a proper sense of just how suited we might be to a Charter all safely resting in and around our Memorandum, we can plot just what we might do, whichever way the response goes, ‘Charter… or no Charter’. For example, we now know that members strongly support the potential for a Charter to bring substantial benefits to our profession and discipline, and to all our diverse aspirations and attached hopes. That member support is dependent on obvious reservations, especially regarding both finances (including member fees) and any administrative distractions from our core services and role that the process might generate. With issues around these concerns now much clearer after our investigative work, we are in a strong position to advise properly. Investigations suggest that neither cost nor process should be barriers. To date, our costs have been both controlled and, compared to earlier external estimates, even much reduced. Those reductions are helped, both for the past and for the future, by the advice and support of partners, consultants and bodies recruited along our journey, all helped by our familiar cost-conscious management. The chartering processes are simpler for us than for other bodies. That is because we already align so well, and across so many measures, with the modern culture of chartering. Our current accreditation standards align with core Charter precepts – from fostering social and cultural improvements to upholding established and exemplary professional practices and principles – bringing public benefit, and matching or exceeding peer chartered disciplines, if on a rather smaller scale. And while the issue of chartering an individual’s practice standards is not directly relevant to the chartering of the charity discussed here (as current discussions relate only to the chartering of the charity, not to chartering our members, which entails a separate stage) the chartering of a person’s practice is naturally a consideration for all. Furthermore, the Charter’s focus on public benefit, its most underrecognised requirement, is easier for us, as our charitable status has always been our default position. That has been made even simpler as we have already modernised our constitution, and had it authorised by charity regulators in line with the protocols of devolved governments, to be charter-ready, so we are ahead of that game too. That unexpectedly tight tie between charter and public benefit also usefully spurred some more fundamental thinking around the Memorandum on how our regulation of the interdisciplinary conservation practice of our accredited members’ enhances the public benefit that is already intrinsic in good conservation. That will be the subject of a future column, as well as new formal guidance, but again this all confirms a real sense of our fit with the concept of a Charter, and the value of our measured approach to the Memorandum. So, if the next stage is ‘Charter’, not ‘no Charter’, we have a clear route to, and capacity for, developing a formal Petition. All new work will be embedded within that chartering process. We will then pursue the subsequent stages, managing the process and its attendant hurdles with the same cautious optimism and careful stewardship of our profession that has distinguished our work to In 2025 the IHBC’s Board agreed that the institute’s next corporate plan, our Corporate ‘Action’ Plan 2026–30 (CP30), should be cast from its predecessors, given both their success and our unknowns. It would then serve as an interim plan, as we await final decisions from accredited members first and others, perhaps government and ultimately royalty, on an application for a Royal Charter. The strategy allows us to pivot in a way that encourages us to look at less familiar priorities and themes, not least of which are our resources and infrastructure. As we build on our suite of successful corporate plans (going back to 2007), we also reduce waste, as those plans have been the key guide in taking us from those early, heady and somewhat precarious days to where we are now. The approach also gives us flexibility in responding to our other achievements as, whether we are chartered or not, much of the same sort of work needs to be done. For example, we already have a huge body of consultation comment and input, linked to our existing charter consultations. As most of that was less about the charter (of which, we now know, we were then all pretty uninformed), so it served more to advise on what we needed to achieve to do our job better. What better guide could we have for corporate planning of our next steps? So, around all else happening here, we have been working on the plan: consulting further, via our light-touch call for queries linked to updates on CP25, the predecessor to CP30, as well as at Council and our ongoing NewsBlog features. So while this column is ‘without prejudice’ – yes, that disclaimer – I do want to explain to those interested in these matters the broader strategy underpinning them, and a better sense of our priorities. Some target actions are hardly spoilers, as 2026 is already well on its way. Recent highlights offer an idea of where we might go: expanding on our new standing with government (with an OBE for our chair); in research (my own appointment to the programme board of the multi-million pound conservation research funding infrastructure programme RICHeS – operating under Treasury oversight); and with new highlights to come. Of these there may be a charter sometime. More certainly, for 2027, we need to plan our 30th anniversary. Readers also will guess that any corporate agenda will also be shaped by thoughts long brimming with us, not least as they bubbled over into our 2025 briefing in Parliament, From Crafts in Crisis to Rubbish in Retrofit: the IHBC’s five commitments to help heritage skills in conservation. There we tried to join the some of the dots in conservation processes. Our Communications and Outreach Committee Strategy 2025–28 also looks closely at linked themes, not least enhancing accessibility across our communications and services, and so helps us engage with new sectors and players. In summary, the focus of our new plan’s strategy will be around growing, including especially our networks and profile, underpinned by supporting resources. It will likely be tied to three interdependent threads framing growth: facilitating access, to enhance engagement and so heighten impact. The new plan’s principles adopt our corporate plans’ legacy format of key actions tied to a structural casing that delivers charitable objectives, committing us to a) help people; b) help conservation; and c) help conservation professionals. This focus on public benefit is reinforced by our charter interests and lessons. So while the IHBC’s unique core object is to help conservation professionals, and help our members do their work, The Cloister Garth of the London Charterhouse, venue of the first blended (hybrid) IHBC Council meeting (Photo: Paul the Archivist, Wikimedia)
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