The IHBC’s new Branch Committee Bulletin has been issued, updating our Branch committees on strategic developments and current priorities, while if you want to find out more just check the NewsBlogs or contact your Branch Officers or the IHBC’s National Office.
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IHBC Director Sean O’Reilly writes:
Dear IHBC Branch Committee…
With apologies offered for an uncomfortably full Bulletin update, I do hope that the content serves well as explanation for the delay!
If you are pressed for time, I’d encourage you to skim forward to select the sections of most interest, and come back to the others as needed. Please remember too that these are all informal guides and updates, and we’ll confirm details separately when more formal statements are ready to be made.
As ever, do feel free to circulate this Bulletin to your Committee or more widely through your Branch networks or communications. If some content can help any of your own Branch communications or networks, please also adapt them as needs too. These updates are always provisional and subject to change, however, and more current and updates of mainstream IHBC news appear in our NewsBlogs service, so keep an eye on those too.
Background
As you will see from the content below, the IHBC’s National Office support service has seen even more changes in recent months. We have been extending support for volunteers and our members’ networks and enhancing our own infrastructure, all while maintaining our core services – publications, training, accreditation and advocacy etc.
As we continue to grow, some areas have come under particular pressure – especially our accreditation assessments which have been running a little behind the curve for a while due to member interest and internal capacity. Similarly our in-person MATE session guidance for accreditation has been in abeyance. And, as Branch Treasurers especially will know, this year – for the first and only time – our income has exceeded the threshold that triggers a full and, for all the IHBC, a more complex audit of our finances, one that matches listed companies better than small charities. These audits contrast starkly with the usual lighter touch ‘examination’ by our accountants that you will know well. We did hope we could stay under the threshold – even, finally, changing our Financial Year for accounting purposes to the more familiar tax year– but to no avail. However this audit is a one-off event, while resources and plans to address all these and other pressures are tied to initiatives reported on below.
So while I’d ask for patience in these and other pressured areas, I’d encourage also a focus on the progress that we can celebrate, all much tied to our Charter progress and allied growth. Perhaps the most important recent and current matters to be aware of just now are:
- We are progressing our National Office re-organisation too, as new investment in staff, services, strategic support and enhanced corporate standards linked to our Charter exploration and lessons all bear fruit.
- The OBE for our Chair, David McDonald offered a welcome sign of our growing recognition and standing, followed up by my own appointment to the multi-million pound research funding RICHeS programme, together offering us useful opportunities to bring our messages into new networks and territories.
- Last November IHBC’s 2025 Parliamentary Briefing in Westminster saw the launch of our research-led ‘5 Commitments to Help Heritage Skills in Conservation’. This current Bulletin reports on progress there, and how it is helping shape the most fundamental of our plans. That Briefing underpins our coming consultation draft Corporate Plan2026-30 (‘CP30’), also covered in more detail below, and helps focus lessons we’ve learned from our Charter engagement, including for branches especially, offering:
- A more inclusive approach to network and sector engagement, alongside more energetic (and still appropriate) political advocacy across all governments.
- A renewed focus on support and advocacy for regulatory conservation services, initially focused on our local conservation service interests, including opportunities for Branch links, all so well represented at our last Council.
- Expanding investment in support and infrastructure for our Branches and Branch Consultants, so they – and you – can all contribute more easily to shaping the Conservation Professionals of the future.
At the same time we have had a hugely successful School in Newcastle and, online, far beyond. That demonstrated well the learning, networking and financial potential of our new ‘blended’ model School, with Branch volunteers fully supported by the National Office.
And finally, two pieces of ‘breaking news’ that I think capture well the IHBC’s current spirit, diversity and energy:
- Supported by newfound enthusiastic interest and networks in Westminster, we are once again – and much to my happy surprise, I am delighted to say – about to welcome a new All Party Parliamentary Group on ‘Heritage and Regeneration’ in Westminster, with the IHBC as its lead Secretariat. That will see its inauguration on 9 September with our Vice Chair Lone Le Vay in attendance at what is primarily an internal Parliamentary event.
- A new Early Career Working Group for IHBC members in, naturally, early career roles (especially young and recent career-changers) has been established to develop and shape a linked Early Career Network, so keep an eye on our NewsBlogs for updates.
Expanding Branch & volunteer support
Linked to all the above, I am working on a consolidated plan to underpin the CP30 by highlighting the special benefits and opportunities offered by our unique Branch infrastructure. This will appear later in the process linked to ‘CP30’, and should consolidate a range of developments many of which are already under way, with some key initiatives listed below:
- With Branch Consultant infrastructure in place, we are now continuing to invest in expanding the capacity of the National Office to offer wider support, from staff to other more local support consultants, with Sarah Homer as our most recent addition to the team, with more to come.
- We are advancing a newCRM digital membership management system that we hope to have in place later this year, and which should help simplify member management and engagement by our Branches.
- It’s our ‘30th’ anniversary next year – with prospects of another phase of substantial progress with our Charter – so we’ll soon be issuing guidance to apply for funding for linked initiatives, with £250 as a base-line available under an ‘easy application’ system modelled on our 25th Anniversary support funds. So do get your committees thinking about plans to mark and celebrate that in your local areas, maybe especially re-engaging with some more senior members no longer active in your Branch.
We are also advancing a number of other changes internally tied to those above. These include streamlining our diverse and hard-to-navigate consultation-linked networks. We will pilot a new, easy-access Practice Advice Panel (PAP), to be hosted by the National Office. It will offer all stakeholders an opportunity to seek feedback, without prejudice, from across the full breadth of skills, knowledge and experience in our existing advisory networks.
These developments above represent just some of the most significant threads linking our Branch support and Charter explorations, with more detailed progress outlined below.
[NOTE: TO BE CONTINUED in ‘Branch Committee Bulletin, from the IHBC’s Director’ NewsBlog Part 2…]
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