News from the Board: highlights from the second half of 2025

I hope all members are keeping well, and on behalf of the Board of Trustees, I wish you all the very best for 2026.

This is my update on the Chair's activities since the AGM, so it's quite a meaty update. Since my last blog, we have also added an AGM Q&A to the website, which goes into detail about some of the issues raised on the day.

July Board meeting

In July the Board met for two days of strategic planning. They were pretty busy days, but very worthwhile for trustees and a wide range of topics were covered.

On day 1, we reflected on governance arrangements, how the Board has worked in the last 12 months, how we make the most of Board meetings, its accountability to members and our legal duties of trustees. We considered the governance structures of CIEH; including committees and delegations. CIEH has seen a lot of change in the last 3 years, and we want to make sure that we are high performing and that we can measure and demonstrate the success of the organisation.

We considered risk and how we manage this. We considered our risk culture and how we set the appetite for risk. We review the organisational risk assessment at every Board meeting and there are a number which we would like to see more action to reduce the risk. We discussed the challenges in doing this. The Governance risk is owned by the Board. We now have an action plan in place to develop procedures and policies, and progress on this will be reported in June 2026.

On day 2, we had a series of external speakers who presented their own experiences of policy, professional standards, membership organisations and commercial matters. These were excellent presentations which gave trustees a different perspective of these subjects alongside our own similar challenges. Ian Andrews and Richard Fernandez from the CIEH Policy Team presented on the tool they use to prioritise policy development.

September and December Board meetings

We have had two Board meetings since my last update, 25 September and 4 December. At the December meeting, we were delighted to welcome President Mark to the meeting after a period of illness and wish him all the best and a full recovery.

The September Board meeting coincided with REHIS's 150-year celebration event which I attended with Fran McCloskey and Jon Buttolph. We also attended the Board meeting at 4pm and finished in time to get my train home. It was a busy day! The REHIS celebration day had a series of presentations and they had pulled together a fantastic timeline of their development marked by key social, environmental and public health milestones. We have carried out similar work for CIEH - view our timeline of key milestones in CIEH's history. For those of you who may be asking when CIEH will be 150 years old - that will be in 8 years' time - 2033. Thank you to REHIS for their kind invitation to be part of their celebration.

Here's a summary of the main agenda items for both the September and December Board meetings:

• We have approved the draft Budget for 2026. The Board's aims to set a balanced budget, however for 2026 there are some challenges and we have approved a deficit budget of £143,000. Whilst this is not our favoured position, this will enable CIEH to continue delivery of all of its strategic objectives. The Board has accepted that in order to deliver on other areas, it will be necessary to delay full achievement of financial sustainability for another year or two. The Board feel confident in taking this view as CIEH continues to make good progress towards financial stability and has now nearly reached its reserves policy requirement. The recent staffing review has resulted in a more fit for purpose structure to deliver our strategy. We now have a Head of Commercial post and their function is to develop income opportunities for the business side of CIEH and increase membership.
• Appointment to the Director of Environmental Health role. I was part of the interview panel for the recruitment to this post, together with the President and Chief Executive. We all put considerable time and effort into the advertising, selection and interview process. It was very disappointing that we were unable to successfully appoint. The Chief Executive is planning to carry out a review of the role in January 2026, to consider alternative ways of delivery which will include interim arrangements. The outcome of this will be reported back to the Board. This is such an important professional role for the organisation, so we do have to take the time to ensure we make the right appointment.
• The Member's Day, which is the new proposed format for the 2026 AGM. This event will provide an opportunity for Members to attend a conference in the morning, to celebrate Member’s successes, a presentation from a keynote speaker, followed by the AGM in the afternoon. More information will follow over the next few months.
• Membership fees for 2026. We agreed an increase in line with inflation and EMT will be bringing a review of membership benefits and grades to a future Board meeting.
• The Board approved Ceri Edwards and Linda Cobb to be awarded Honorary Fellowships in recognition of their long term and wide-ranging commitment to the EH profession. Congratulations to both on your award and thank you for everything you do for the profession.
• Fellowships, how they are awarded and the difference between Honorary Fellowships and Fellowships. This is to be discussed further at the March Board meeting. We also discussed Vice Presidents, criteria for their appointment and numbers. The Board thanked those Vice Presidents who will be demitting their posts for their support. A further report is to be brought to a future Board meeting with the proposed changes to operating procedures.
• Progress with the Day/Gray Motion. On 14 November we arranged a facilitated workshop with Ian Gray and Chris Day, together with Lyndsey Shaw, Trustee, Zena Lynch, Jon Buttolph, Fran McCloskey, Rachel Flowers, Ian Andrews and myself. We reviewed the motion and developed proposals on how to better progress this work. This was reported to MPPAG who have made recommendations. This has since been circulated and approved by the Board.
• Changes to the committees which report to the Board of Trustees: the Environmental Health Services Committee, which will have oversight of policy, education and membership (replacing the Membership, Policy and Professions Advisory Group) and the Resources Committee, which will have oversight of the organisation’s financial, commercial, and technology strategies.
• Strategy Update – work in progressing with the delivery of the strategy and the Board were updated on the development of performance management plans within the organisation. This work is in its early stages.
• We reviewed an excellent video presentation which highlighted executive and operational successes in 2025 for the Board to see. A version of these highlights with information pertinent to members was published in EHN. This really was an impressive summary of the great achievements of our members and the organisation - we felt very proud. Well done to everyone involved.
• We recognised the resounding success of the CIEH Wales Conference 2025 "Embracing Change, Empowering Environmental Health" and thanked everyone for their contribution in organising and participating in it. I was planning to attend and was so sorry to miss this due to a personal commitment.
• We welcomed and thanked Matt Davenport, David Steels, and Sammy Simiyu, who have been appointed to CIEH’s committees from 1 January 2026. We look forward to working with you.
• The Board would like to thank James Howe and Zena Lynch who have made exceptional contributions to the governance of CIEH and the wider work of the organisation. They have both reached their maximum term of serving six years being a member of and chairing the Appointment and Recruitment Committee and the Membership, Policy and Professions Advisory Group. They have both been truly outstanding in their contributions towards the running of and providing expertise for the organisation. Thank you again.

Tribute to Peter Archer

And finally, you will be sad to hear about the passing of Peter Archer, who had been a member of CIEH for over 60 years, was awarded Fellowship in 1983 and had been a former Chair of the Board in 1998. I attended Peter's funeral together with fellow trustee Kevin Shawcross - many thanks to Bob Young for his help with my transport arrangements. It was so very humbling to hear the tributes from his family. His passion for environmental health has driven so much change and improved the lives of so many people. Throughout his life, he made a massive contribution to the profession and CIEH. We will recognise and thank Peter at the 2026 AGM and we are currently planning the best way to mark his legacy.

Next Board meeting

Our next Board meeting is in March. We are planning for this to be a face-to-face meeting in the afternoon, with the morning planned as an all CIEH staff briefing and meet-up session with trustees. We are looking forward to meeting the staff.

Thank you to all members for your support.