RICS names lead on independent governance review

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has appointed Lord Michael Bichard (pictured) to conduct a long-awaited external review into the troubled organisation’s governance and purpose. Bichard will start work on the review immediately, with a six-month timetable for completion. He will issue a call for evidence to all members and interested parties within the next few weeks. Previous roles include permanent secretary for the Department of Education and chief executive of both Brent Council and Gloucester County Council. He has also chaired several organisations, including the Design Council. Notably, Bichard led a major government inquiry into child protection in 2003 following the Soham murders of two 10-year-old girls by their school caretaker. He was subsequently appointed chairman of the Legal Services Commission before becoming director of the Institute for Government in 2008, and chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence in 2013. He has been a crossbench peer since 2010. Nick Maclean, interim chair of governing council at the RICS, said: “We could not have wished for a better independent reviewer than Lord Bichard, who has a wealth of experience, derived from a long and distinguished career in public service and as chair of leading organisations. “He was the outstanding candidate from a very strong shortlist and he will bring to the review his deep understanding of governance and commitment to promoting the highest values in public life.” Bichard said: “I want this to be a positive, forward-looking review, advising RICS on how it can become a world-leading membership organisation again. “I will focus on the purpose and governance structure needed to achieve that, and look forward to receiving evidence from the membership and to meeting as many stakeholders as possible during my inquiry.” The governing council began an open recruitment process for the position after Alison Levitt QC urged the RICS to turn its own review, which ran internally in March, into an external, “wide-ranging examination of purpose, governance and strategy”. Recruitment agency Gatenby Sanderson marketed the role as an “attractively remunerated position”. The external review was one of several recommendations made in her damning report into a governance row at the institution, to fix a “considerable trust deficit” between the RICS, its members and the public. Levitt advised that a review should be led by “someone of high standing, with knowledge of governance and how public interest bodies work, but who is independent of RICS”. “One of the things I have learned is that for the last decade, RICS has been engaging in almost constant governance reviews of one sort or another,” Levitt said in the report. “It is apparent from my findings that these internal exercises have not yet succeeded in getting it right.” She added: “The issues are both complex and arcane and it will not be easy to rebuild trust, as there is an ingrained suspicion that there is an agenda to limit the influence of the membership.” In a move that was widely criticised by the industry, then-chief executive Sean Tompkins and then-president Kathleen Fontana chaired an internal review into the organisation’s purpose and relevance earlier in March. The pair stepped down in September as an outcome of the Levitt report, since both played roles in the governance crisis and its aftermath. To send feedback, e-mail pui-guan.man@eg.co.uk or tweet @PuiGuanM or @EGPropertyNews