David McDonald OBE, IHBC Chair, and IHBC President Rebecca Thompson, have written to members and prospective members asking for input to the consultation around our next Corporate Plan, for 2026-30, (‘CP30’), with responses sought by 30 October 2026.
IHBC Members: If you have not received your email on the consultation contact Lydia at admin@ihbc.org.uk with your membership number
IHBC Chair David McDonald OBE writes in his preface to CP30 (consultation copy):
The preparation of our Corporate ‘Action’ Plan 2026-30 (‘CP30’) comes at a seminal moment in the evolution of the IHBC as a professional organisation. CP30 has been formulated to fit in with our aspiration towards chartered status for the Institute and so sets out an ambitious set of actions to take us to this milestone and beyond.
It builds upon the success of its predecessors, which enabled the IHBC to forge a successful path through the uncertainties of the years affected by Covid and beyond. Many of the issues highlighted in the previous plans, such as climate change and inclusion, are continuing and will not be ignored as we move forward.
However, in the short term CP30 will be concentrating on the key aspects of Charter compliance, particularly to continue to demonstrate that our Charter would be in the public interest, and that the interdisciplinary aspect of the IHBC’s model of conservation practice gives us a unique role in the historic environment sector. To that we must add our recent commitment to help heritage skills in conservation and ensuring that these skills are appropriately reflected in local planning authorities.
In making all this happen, the plan also reflects the need to build a resilient staffing structure and, with plans for new and enhanced income streams, it also ensures that the Institute’s current financial stability will continue into the future.
David McDonald OBE, IHBC Chair, and IHBC President Rebecca Thompson have written to members as follows:
On behalf of the IHBC, we are writing to notify you of the consultation on our evolving ‘Corporate Plan 2026-30’ (‘CP30’), and encourage you to contribute your thoughts by 30 October 2026.
Having issued a full consultation on the key starting point for CP30, its predecessor, ‘CP25’, HERE, our draft consultation copy of CP30 aims to summarise our future plans and strategy at a time of great change in the IHBC. Our Charter engagement is, of course, central to CP30, and we will update you on progress and plans around that in the coming weeks.
In CP30 we want to make clear that, alongside our wider ambitions, the IHBC’s core priority must remain as it has been from the start: to maintain and improve core services to the IHBC’s growing community of Conservation Professionals and their networks.
At the same time, as the preface notes, this new plan ‘comes at a seminal moment in the evolution of the IHBC as a professional organisation’. So now, more than ever, we need to plan strategically for our role as the lead advocate of the practice and benefits of built and historic environment conservation.
As our CP30 strapline indicates, we will ‘Engage’ with all conservation players and stakeholders, ‘Support’ our members and their networks, and ‘Invest’ in the infrastructure to deliver those ambitions, effectively and sustainably.
As usual in our consultations, members – including prospective members of all categories – may freely feed their thoughts on this consultation to our Branch officers; to our committees and representatives, as well as to our trustees and other officers, all as suits.
However for us to capture your personal thoughts most effectively, we do strongly encourage use of our dedicated Consultation Response Form HERE.
With your help we can all make our new plans as ‘fit-for-purpose’ as our recent planning has proven to be.
One cautionary note to bear in mind when considering the consultation document: for any issues unfamiliar to you, please do first see what we may have already reported to members, most easily by using the search facility in our NewsBlogs or our other web resources or member communications. A simple search there will likely offer you an adequate background.
If you still have questions on detail or fact, please do feel free to contact in the first instance the IHBC’s director@ihbc.org.uk.
See more on IHBC Corporate Papers, including the Corporate Plan for 2015-20 (CP20)
See more background on the initial CP30 consultation, and links, HERE
