C O N T E X T 1 0 9 : M A Y 2 0 0 9 43 Director’s cut IHBC planning: tell us what you think With the host of new programmes in the IHBC now sprinting along merrily, the national office is fully occupied. Project work, business development, the annual school, the now regular round of advocacy and profile raising that sees major national events no less than twice inWales this year, as well a raft of smaller jobs both current (our guidance for members of branch committees) and in waiting (our Honorary Associates): all these and more mean that the national office is kept busy on operational activities, allowing council a little more time to consider our forward planning. As we approach the final term of the IHBC’s first (and necessarily summary) plan prepared under your director, the Corporate Plan for 2007-2010, we now need to shape a new plan. Council recently approved a programme to plan our future direction for 2010-15. As with any good planning, we must begin with how we got here. Our existing plan was limited by our insufficient grasp of key parts of the organisation, our operating environment, our capacity and our potential. Today we have a much more mature understanding of our activities and roles across the historic and built environment sector.We have shown how we can provide substantial policy, research and advocacy at the heart of government, exemplified by our contributions to the draft heritage legislation for England – a bill which, even if in abeyance or more, has helped us to define our role and operations. Our joint response to the bill reflected aspirations of organisations representing some quarter of a million professional memberships.We have also helped shape a key planning document for the sector, the National Heritage Training Group’s Action Plan for 2007 and after (see www.ihbc.org.uk). In addition to this substantial cross-sector profile, we have secured an expanding membership, a clearly defined multi-disciplinary criteria for applicants, a trading arm (albeit burgeoning), a members’ business listing (HESPR), a sophisticated web resource, a coherent and low-cost de-centralised business model combining core staff and outsourced services, and extra support for volunteers. Our detailed membership procedures and guidance, most evident now in the new application form on our website, have also helped the IHBC win more confident support from our partners. Our successful progress gives confidence in our future even if the construction sector, on which many members rely, is just now reeling from recession and the credit crunch.Your director has the dubious privilege of being one of the earlier commentators to speak of the revolution to be wrought in the conservation world by the Collatoralised Debt Obligations (CDOs) scandal and comparable fiscal fantasias. At our 10th anniversary reception in September 2007, in Edinburgh Castle, prior to the nationalisation of Northern Rock, I noted that the financial turmoil could shape the management of the historic environment more than any of the any proposed legislative reforms. Today, with recession firmly embedded, deflation a reality and new legislation in England at best on hold, ours is a very different world. Our forward planning must take account of this radical economic shift. Yet our business and corporate strategy is no less appropriate today, at the outset of a recession, than it was when written, at the heady heights of a boom. Our streamlined national office team, mostly home-based, working closely with highly skilled consultants, allows us both a small cost base and a very flexible infrastructure that can accommodate whatever the recession throws at us. Similarly, with support for our branches being developed – including guidance for branch committee officers – we are poised to reap new benefits and add value our volunteers and members. Not only our sister professional bodies, but also many businesses would like to have our combination of streamlining, focus and potential.
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