Q&A: RICS president Kathleen Fontana

Kathleen Fontana, who became president at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in November last year, has started her term in the hot seat. Criticism has mounted over the value that RICS members perceive to gain from their membership fees, compounded by growing calls for independent, external scrutiny on the organisation’s governance and treasury management controls. The governing council’s steps to address these issues include two reviews into its governance and engagement practices, ongoing since late 2019. Here, in her first interview, Fontana, who is also managing director of critical infrastructure and projects at Mitie, discusses RICS’s cultural approach and how it aims to engage with its members. Fontana did not provide comment on questions relating to executive board decisions and remuneration, which she said fell outside her remit as president of RICS. How have you felt about criticisms that the 2018 audit report and its aftermath could serve as an example of the culture and the governance structure that appears to underpin RICS? One of the things that is encouraging to me, as a fee-paying member myself, is that the BDO report was commissioned by management. It wasn’t imposed upon them. They asked for the audit and for the BDO report. Personally, that is a sign of a mature culture that is open to learning and development and is alert to risk. So for me, notwithstanding that the audit absolutely picked up some issues [that] I feel management dealt with promptly and effectively – and the chair of the audit committee was happy with, as well – but the fact that management were the ones asking for the audit and the support from BDO, I think, is indicative of a positive commercial financial culture in an organisation. I’m not sure I agree that there is a problem with the culture. RICS has garnered much criticism about its approach to collecting subscription payments, and many individuals have questioned the level of benefits that they feel they are receiving for the high cost of what they’re paying for. How is RICS addressing this? We have frozen our fees this year, and we have, in support of our members who are under severe economic pressure – for example, those furloughed – already given out £675,000 in fee concessions in this renewal cycle. Sometimes those concessions have gone as far as 90% of all fees. If you look at the members’ support we have provided during this very difficult period, we’ve been able to put 2,200 candidates through the professional APC progression because we’ve been able to switch to digital [through] an investment that was made previously. We’ve delivered 263,000 webinars, events and training events over the period, and we’ve provided a really comprehensive range of webinars for professionals to address the impact Covid is having on our sector, as well as doing really important [things] like the independent valuation review and lobbying the government, in particular BEIS, to make sure the Brexit trade deal works for our professionals, [and] fire safety. Today we’re going to launch a consultation on the guidance on the valuation of multi-storey, multi-occupancy buildings with cladding, which we know is a really important issue, not only for our members but also for society as a whole. All organisations are challenged on value for the money and it’s right and proper that our members challenge on that. But I personally feel that, particularly in this really difficult time for all organisations, RICS has delivered value for its members. We’re open to the challenge of the debate and that will definitely be part of our engagement review – improving our engagement so we can get that feedback and we can really listen to that. We want to be a listening organisation for our members. How would you respond to criticism that RICS has fallen out of touch with its members? How will RICS restore the faith within its membership? I think our trust index is still quite high among our membership. But we always want to engage better with our members, and that’s what our engagement review is all about. We acknowledge that we have a complex, diverse membership. And it’s really important that we make sure every member feels they can engage with RICS. We don’t take it for granted. We’re not complacent, and that’s why we’re doing the engagement review. But if I look at the way that the profession has engaged with us, certainly in the last year or so, especially during the pandemic, I feel that actually we’ve had more engagement than ever. From a training or development perspective, 41,000 professionals have registered for our training and development, which is significantly more than we would expect in a normal year; 3,000 participants joined our world built environment forum. Engagement is a very broad term. Certainly I want to drive deeper and broader engagement. That’s really on my agenda, especially with the younger professionals we support. But we take that on board. If that’s the perception, we need to listen to that and we do want to be listening. That’s why we’re doing the engagement review now, to make sure that we do engage fully. I personally feel we’ve been more in touch with our members than ever before. And certainly, from the digital engagement we’ve had, we had more people engaged with RICS than ever before this year. RICS is hugely committed to two things. Firstly, supporting members through the next short-term period, because clearly 2021 has got off to quite a bad start, in the States and with the pandemic becoming ever more difficult for everybody. I can provide assurance that RICS is absolutely focused on making sure that our members are supported and enabled through the next period, and that we are closely talking to government, particularly to try to make sure that the property, land and construction professions that we represent are fully supported throughout the coming period, but also that RICS has a strategic eye on the future as well. What I really want to focus on is not only that short-cycle thinking that we just need to get through the next six months or so, but also how [to] make sure [we] empower our membership to deal with the big challenges like proptech, climate change, diversity and the future of the profession as a whole. In terms of current issues, we are absolutely financially stable. We’re in a good place. We have appropriate processes in place to deal with all our risks, appropriate governance and oversight. We know they need support in the coming period and we’re actively working on that. We have a strategic perspective as well, so that we’re enabling and equipping [surveyors] to deal with the big challenges that are yet to come. How are you feeling about taking on these challenges? I am definitely not having the presidential term that I expected when I threw my hat in the ring as senior vice-president three years ago. And I’m a practitioner, too. I have a very busy day job, and I’m dealing with all the issues in my day job that a lot of surveyors are dealing with. I really hope that I can support the platform of the presidential team. I feel that my small part to play in all of this is to support the RICS on those big strategic things to push us forward. Being a president, you’re part of a continuum of presidents and a continuum of the organisation’s strategic thinking. I’m actually excited and I want to exploit the digital opportunity so I can engage [with] a lot more people than if I was on a plane flying around the world. Like everybody else, I’m working from home, I’m a president from my spare room. That’s a challenge, but I think we have to grab the opportunities as well. To send feedback, e-mail pui-guan.man@egi.co.uk or tweet @PuiGuanM or @estatesgazette This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and flow Picture © RICS