IHBC’s 2025 Westminster launch of ‘5 Commitments to Help Heritage Skills in Conservation… From Crafts in Crisis to Rubbish in Retrofit’, also boasts a web hub with the Briefing video and a ‘Feedback’ option, so please help us reduce damage to both health and heritage by letting us know your thoughts.
See HERE for ‘IHBC’s 5 Commitments’ in detail
See HERE for research and related references and links
See HERE for the video that played at the IHBC’s Parliamentary Briefing
Feedback on Helping Heritage Skills in Conservation: IHBC’s 5 Commitments
See more on the IHBC’s CREATIVE Conservation Fund
IHBC Director Seán O’Reilly said: ‘We’re working hard on detailed planning for the delivery of our ‘5 Commitments’ to the sector – which can help both heritage and health – including incorporating key actions into our new Corporate Plan.’
‘We’re also highlighting the linked web hub resource that underpins the Briefing pamphlet, including the IHBC-led research and launch.’
‘Among other uses, the hub hosts the video that played at the briefing – designed by our Education etc. Officer, Angharad Hart, who also designed the pamphlet itself – and a feedback option, to gather wider input about our ‘5 Commitments’ and how and we – and you – can help deliver them.
‘With that ambition in mind, we’d like all our members, networks and stakeholders to both contribute thoughts on the issues raised by the new research and our Briefing, from needs and priorities to suggestions and offers.’
‘This feedback will shape the IHBC’s plans to contribute to delivering cross-sector solutions that actually make a difference to the heritage we all care about, from the maximising the social benefits it can bring to minimising the health damage bad decisions can drive.’
‘So, we want advice and suggestions on how best to help address this other ‘crisis of rubbish’: whether directly, through conservation and care, or indirectly, through minimising the damaging and costly work of the sort that the National Audit Office highlighted in its scathing report into public funding of costly retrofits undermining both heritage and health’.
Rebecca Thompson writes in her introduction to IHBC’s ‘5 Commitments’ to Heritage Skills:
‘I am delighted to welcome the IHBC’s response to a new report into ‘Heritage Skills in Conservation’, supported by the IHBC’s CREATIVE Conservation Fund.
The report is an independent scoping of barriers to key skills needed for successful built and historic environment conservation. It helps shape our response to this costly and damaging story of skills deficits and disappointments.
Ranging from old crafts and new trades to professional practice and, of course, retrofit, its grand and ambitious sweep captures a challenging account of poor decisions and missed opportunities.
The wide scope reflects the concerns of IHBC members who, as Conservation Professionals, work across development processes to achieve the best viable outcomes for valued places and buildings.
That scope also reflects the IHBC’s successful case to apply for a Charter, as we continue to focus on enhancing the public benefits of cross-cutting and interdisciplinary conservation practice.
Here, our own ‘Five Commitments’ lists how we will respond to the skills challenges captured in the report. So I hope everyone can use this work too, to help you seize on any opportunities to address them.’
IHBC’S 5 COMMITMENTS TO HELP HERITAGE SKILLS IN CONSERVATION
1. Advocate: Present targeted parliamentary-level briefings across the UK and its Home Nations.
2. Educate: Enhance access to IHBC standards and services across all built and historic environment practices and operations.
3. Investigate: Investigate the complex challenges in heritage management processes and skills and respond accordingly.
4. Celebrate: Celebrate the achievements of heritage skillS in conservation, helped by our CREATIVE Conservation Fund.
5. Integrate: Establish and host a new network, open and free, to support service leads delivering conservation-related learning, training and education.
See links and more at Parliamentary Briefings | The Institute of Historic Building Conservation including the ‘5 Commitments’ at IHBC’s 5 Commitments to Help Heritage Skills in Conservation and the scoping research at Heritage Skills in Conservation An independent sector survey
See more background to IHBC’s Parliamentary engagement on the NewsBlogs HERE and on the archived website of the IHBC’s All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Conservation, Places & People HERE, as well as ‘THE VALUE OF HERITAGE: FIRST REPORT of the APPG’ HERE
See more on the IHBC’s CREATIVE Conservation Fund
