News from the Board: reflecting on 2024 and looking forward to 2025

Happy New Year to all our members. On behalf of the Board of trustees I would like to wish you all the best for 2025 and hope it brings you all you need and more.

I’ll start off with an update from our Board meeting held on 4 December. We now hold our meeting quarterly, although there are plenty more meetings in between which keep trustees busy.

Strategy development

We held a Board Strategy Day in September which trustees attended in person. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend for personal reasons. This was a facilitated session where trustees reviewed the 2024 short terms priorities we had set in September 2023 and developed those for the coming year and further into the future. The priorities we identified are the “big ticket” items, those essential areas we need to focus on to drive CIEH forward.

Since this meeting EMT have been working on the action plans to deliver the priorities and these were presented to the trustees at the December Board meeting. I’ve summarised the priorities below and we will share the full detail over the next few weeks:

• Profession and membership – developing a thriving environmental health profession that is well recognised and well-staffed. To develop excellent membership services.
• Voice and visibility – to ensure the environmental health profession is understood, recognised, is valued and delivers policy with impact.
• Organisation and culture – ensuring financial sustainability, to develop the teams and build CIEH infrastructure, and embed our values in our work and behaviours.

The overarching area of work to be prioritised is the development of a CIEH infrastructure which can deliver these priorities. This work will start now, and progress will be reported back to the next Board meeting.

Finance update

We received a detailed finance update from Anna Westacott, Interim Director of Finance and Corporate Services. She reported a better than expected budget position for 2024. We approved the budget for 2025. Whilst we have approved a net deficit budget this includes a large contingency for the implementation of key strategic initiatives which should assist in the long-term development and sustainability of CIEH. The Board are striving towards CIEH operating on a balanced budget, however it is a balance to ensure that as an organisation we are continuing to develop and move forward.

Review of the design and operation of Advisory Panels

We reviewed the report produced by Marcial Boo on the Review of the Design and Operation of Advisory Panels. The Board commended the detailed content of the report and agreed that a subgroup should be set up to consider the recommendations and report back to the next meeting. We agreed that the report should be published for members to access.

Governance Advisor role

We approved the appointment to the Governance Advisor role. There were two tenders received for this contracted role and interviews were held on 23 October. I’m pleased to tell you that Andrew Harvey was awarded this contract. Some of you may know that Andrew has been delivering this role for several years.

Executive Director of Environmental Health role

We received a verbal update on the recruitment to the Executive Director of Environmental Health post, which was vacated by Louise Hosking. I would like to thank Louise for her work during her role. I had previously updated members through a Chair’s update that, following a recruitment process, we had not been able to appoint to this post. The Board agreed that interim appointments should be made to provide policy and environmental health specialist expertise, whilst a review of the post and its responsibilities is carried out. The Board recognise the importance of this post, the need to develop Environmental Health expertise in CIEH and appointing the right person this role. The interim appointments will allow the space for this foundation work to be carried out.

Professional standards framework

We received MLPAG’s (Membership, Learning and the Profession Advisory Group) paper on the review of the professional standards framework. It is proposed that Phase 1 engagement with stakeholders will be completed by June 2025 and the Board will provide an interim update to members at the AGM. Thank you to MLPAG members for their work on this.

Legacy donation

The Board received a report with news about a legacy donation to CIEH of £1.1 million via the Estate of the late Anthony Babbage OBE. The Board was overwhelmed by the generosity of this previous CIEH member and I’m sure members will feel the same way. We discussed the options for CIEH’s approach to utilising the legacy funds. Trustees agreed on a number of potential options, however the most important proposal is to establish a long-standing named recognition of Anthony’s significant contribution to the organisation. It was agreed that EMT, would carry out further work based on the Board’s proposals for the best use of this legacy and report back to the next meeting. There will be an article in Environmental Health News recognising Anthony Babbage OBE and his very kind and generous recognition of CIEH.

Reflections on 2024

I apologise, this is becoming a very long update but I also want to reflect on the Board’s work and the progress which has been made in the last 12 months. I was appointed to the Chair’s role in June 2023. Working together with the trustees, EMT, CIEH staff and our members, we have seen considerable change within the organisation and we are setting the foundation for more to come. Thank you for your support and hard work.

Our December Board meeting was the first to have a full representation of 13 trustees. James Johnson, Kevin Shawcross and Sterling Crew were elected in May, Safia Khokar elected in July and Keith Ramsay and Joanna Quirk were appointed in September 2024. Thank you for joining us.

Considerable work has been carried out to respond to member’s requests and motions. We have directed the charitable status review and voting at the AGM supported no change to our charitable status. Work has started on progressing the Day/Gray motion for the review of the qualification and professional competence processes, the independent review of advisory panels has been carried out and a task and finish group set to consider the recommendations. The contracts and procurement policies have been reviewed, contracts can now be viewed on the CIEH website and supplier databases for spend over £5k.

A Property Review Group has been set up which has established the process and is progressing the review. The Board recognise this is an important piece of work to manage financial risk and ensure the long-term sustainability of CIEH.

The Member engagement research was carried out which will influence the delivery of the membership services, one of our key priorities.

The AGM was delivered in June and received good feedback. We will review and look at the opportunities to improve the 2025 AGM, taking into account the feedback. We would like to see an increase in attendance.

Interim arrangements have been put in place for the CEO and Fran McCloskey is seconded to this post for 18 months. We will review this after 12 months to consider next steps in relation to the long-term appointment. I would like to thank Fran for her hard work and commitment to the organisation, she has been covering multiple roles whilst interim arrangements for vacant posts have been put in place. We welcome Anna Westacott who was appointed as the Interim Director of Finance and Corporate Services. We have developed a Finance Strategy and we have now established the new Finance Committee, which will enable CIEH and the Board to focus on the biggest risk to our sustainability.

As already mentioned above we have now set our priorities for 2025 and these will set the agendas for our Board meetings and for the direction of CIEH. There will be more to say on this in coming months.

I would like to thank all Members for your commitment to CIEH, we are here for you. I’d like to thank those who volunteer to sit on the Advisory Panels, Committees, subgroups or share their expertise in other ways. We have had a number of occasions where members have put themselves forward to represent CIEH in media interviews or at meetings with national bodies. We recognise this essential support to the organisation and to the environmental health profession as we strive to raise our profile and increase our influence and recognition. Please keep being passionate and enthusiastic about our profession and working with CIEH as we continue on our transformation journey.