Why the fall of the RICS should help it rise again

EDITOR’S COMMENT There have been a lot of column inches devoted to the goings on at the RICS over recent months. And more too this week. And it is right that we have become somewhat obsessed with what should be the representative body for the profession of real estate. The RICS should be leading the way when it comes to making sure that real estate is performing to the very best of its ability, that it is attracting the very best individuals to it. It should be supporting and encouraging the transformation of the sector into something better. But if you’ve read all 467 pages of Alison Levitt QC’s report into the organisation’s governance scandal, that is exactly what it has not been doing. My takeaway from the report is that power and ego have been at the centre of the RICS. The body has been so focused internally on its own power struggles and on the egos of those in positions of power, that it has entirely neglected the needs of this industry. The very fact the entire senior leadership at the body has exited, is exiting, or is being exited speaks volumes. To my knowledge, we have never seen anything like it in this sector. The entire leadership of a business (and yes, I’m going to call the RICS a business in its current guise because its focus has been on revenue, not on promoting and supporting the sector) leaving because they were allowed to run wild, with little to no scrutiny and let a molehill turn into a mountain, is unfathomable. The closest I can get to something similar is how Adam Neumann enabled himself to be all-powerful and completely ungoverned at the helm of WeWork. The RICS like WeWork? Surely that is sacrilege. But worse than all of that, worse than the ego, worse than the complete waste of time and money spent on something that should have been nipped in the bud a long time ago, is how little so many people actually care. Leaders across the real estate firms have, rightly so, cared and been vocal about the running of the RICS and its purpose. But delve down deeper, speak to the young surveyors and ask them how much they really care about the RICS, how involved in this epic saga they have been, and I fear you’ll hear only a few quiet voices. The RICS is just there. You have to pass your APC, you have to keep earning your CPD, but when you come to look at the information you have to learn, how relevant is that to your actual day job? If it’s not, it just becomes a tick-box exercise. So, too, does the RICS. And that’s the really sad part. The RICS should not be a box to tick. The whole industry should care about what it is, what it does, how it is managed and how it is governed. The RICS should be a force for good in the industry, not a farce. A very strong, transparent and switched-on leadership will need to be installed at the RICS if it is to rebuild its reputation. It needs humility, not ego, at the top. It needs someone – or a group of people – who is passionate about real estate as a career and as an industry of unending opportunity. And this is where the next generation of real estate professionals needs to play a role. This group of individuals will be vital in resurrecting the RICS, and I call on you to speak up, to put forward your proposals for what the RICS should be, for who should run it and how. And I call on the RICS to listen. Then act. To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews