Institution news
In 2018, following a Special Meeting, the Trustee Board commissioned three member-led reviews covering the Institution’s governance, financial management and member Code of Conduct and disciplinary regulations. The reviews made almost 100 primary recommendations concerning our governance, operations, culture and behaviour, to ensure that the problems that had developed within the IMechE, resulting in the call for the Special Meeting, could not be repeated, and to make us, as a professional engineering Institution, fit for the future in all respects.
In 2019 a dedicated ‘task and finish’ Implementation Group (IG) was established to deliver the recommended changes in a workable manner, that is with pragmatic adjustments to ensure that all the changes meshed to deliver the desired outcome. In achieving these interdependent changes, the IG was sometimes required to delve into the deliberations of the review teams to ensure the underlying intent of a particular recommendation was preserved, be that solving a problem, grasping an opportunity, or simply being an organisation we could all be proud to call our professional home.
I had the privilege of being a member of one of the review teams, then the Implementation Group (IG) and finally to chair the IG for its last year, by the end of which 84 of the original 96 primary recommendations had been fully implemented. Most of the remaining recommendations were either long time-scale projects (such as aspects of culture change) or depended on external factors (including economic and other impacts of Covid-19).
Highlights of the implementation have been covered in previous ‘From Birdcage Walk’ blogs and in Terry Spall’s ‘Inside Track’ during his Presidential year. These include updated Code of Conduct; state of the art Disciplinary Regulations; in-house professional governance expertise; a welcoming and wide reaching approach to attracting members to participate in the governance and operation of the Institution through a new style Nominations Committee (NomCo); improved governance arrangements including a dedicated Strategy Committee, Audit and Risk Committee and separate Finance Board; and many, many more improvements to the structures and behaviours that form the foundation of our Institution.
Whilst it is important to keep progressing work on those recommendations that are not yet fully delivered, it is also critical that the rationale for the changes that have been implemented is not lost and the benefits of the incredible amount of work that has gone into every stage of the transformation is built upon and the improvements are sustained.
The IG has prepared a close-out report and an associated table detailing each primary recommendation, what was implemented and, where this differs from the original recommendations, the reasons for this and how it remains faithful to the original intent. This report is available to all members. Responsibility for each recommendation has been assigned to member-led groups with staff function support to ensure that there is a ‘custodian’ for each area of change beyond the life of the Implementation Group.
Whilst further adjustment may prove beneficial, we should not pull up the seedling too early just to see how the roots are developing. We need to allow sufficient time for structural and operational changes to bed in with minimum disturbance before commencing further reviews and revision. In the close-out table the IG has given some suggestions for such review and course correction.
Being an optimist, I can see that, with perseverance, as these changes become more firmly embedded in the practices of governance and operation, they will serve to cement culture change (perhaps our most difficult challenge) and create a virtuous cycle. I believe that over the coming 2-3 years, this will position the IMechE as an exemplar Institution in the eyes of current and future members, and external stakeholders, ensuring we are fit to deliver on our mission of “improving the world through engineering”.
Dr Kerry J Mashford OBE CEng FIMechE FICE FIET
July 2021
If you would like the report and table emailed to you, please contact us at governance@imeche.org