As an ex-British Army tank commander, it seems fitting that former Knight Frank chief operating officer Justin Young is now leading a campaign to advance the RICS and boost the morale of its troops.
Together with board chair Martin Samworth and interim standards and regulation board chair Nigel Clarke, chief executive Young is steering the organisation through the next stages of a significant turnaround. As a new team they are frank about the challenges ahead, but upbeat that the RICS is on steadier ground than ever.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Samworth tells EG in the trio’s first joint interview. “Things are not perfect. There’s a load of things we’re going to continue to learn from and do better – that’s a continual process. But the journey is going in the right direction and is in a better position to do that than perhaps it might’ve been before.”
Young is effusive about his new role, calling it a “fantastic time” to join the RICS as chief executive. “The desire for it to be successful is absolutely palpable wherever you go,” he says.
Since joining the leadership team in July, Young has spoken with “hundreds” of its circa 133,500 members to understand their views on the organisation, as well as getting to know its 677 staff.
Young is keen to strike a different tone to his predecessors. “It’s that level of engagement to help everybody understand that I’m here now, [and] this is a different tone to what you’ve seen before,” says Young. “Business transformation is my background. We know we need to change, and the absolute desire from people to change here is palpable.”
Young’s strategy has four pillars: getting closer to members; focusing on sustainability; encouraging the next generation into the sector; and ensuring the RICS is a trusted organisation.
Under Young’s transformation plan, 10 “immediate fixes” have been identified. These include ensuring there are enough assessors to handle a 40% increase in APC assessments this autumn, and getting a clear strategy to grow the organisation.
Revamping its Parliament Square HQ is also on the cards. The second floor is set to be stripped out to create a members’ area, and the RICS is working with hospitality industry players on the plans.
The move forms part of a drive to make the RICS’ spaces more member-oriented. Young points to the Birmingham office as an example of work in this area already, as well as a new WeWork-style office in Belfast that has proven cost-effective. It is “continuing to review” its global office footprint, with its Edinburgh premises next on the list.
As the organisation looks to rebuild its reputation, the team is keen to convey that the RICS is not only a professional body, but can be a “commentator and influencer” around the built environment. That opportunity is global, says Samworth, adding: “People who say [the RICS] has had its day, [or] it’s not relevant – they couldn’t be more wrong.”
Sticking with the status quo
Leading a five-strong interim SRB is Clarke, who joined in July following the departure of previous chair Dame Janet Paraskeva. Having worked on the councils of two national regulators for 21 years – 15 of them as chair, Clarke is well-versed with regulation in the UK as well as associated dealings with the government. Before joining the SRB, Clarke chaired the General Pharmaceutical Council.
He says the RICS is on track to implement all the measures from Lord Michael Bichard’s review into the organisation. The final piece of that jigsaw – and a “big challenge”, at that – is figuring out the consumer panel, which Clarke says is “not a straightforward exercise” given the broad church of consumers who use services from RICS members.
The SRB is applying recommendations from Peter Pereira Gray’s independent report into valuations. It will consult the governing council and board on the outcome, expected by the end of this year.
Clarke is encouraged. “RICS regulation, from what I’ve seen in two months, is as good as it gets,” he says, adding that self-regulation remains the best route forward for the profession.
“Communication and open discussion [is] very important between SRB, the board and the governing council,” says Clarke. “No surprises” for each is important, he says, especially in a period of change for the RICS. He highlights an “open and straightforward” meeting that took place between the interim board and governing council in recent weeks. “It’s pretty encouraging,” says Clarke. “It will get better, but it’s starting from a good place.”
Clarke adds that the interim board is “properly motivated and focused in the right kind of way”. “I’m in no position to talk about what happened previously – I can only tell you the way we are going about this now is exactly how I would expect an independent regulator to operate, and the appointment of the new board will be designed to strengthen that,” he says.
The make-up of the board will still be 50-50 lay and professional, says Clarke, but the interim group will seek to ensure the skillset within it “informs strategy and future discussions”.
“The collective view is the current construct and status quo is the right way to go forward,” says Samworth. “That is in the best interests of the public interest, which is what we serve first and foremost, and then for all of our other stakeholders, including our members.”
Despite a recent survey by EG finding that 58% of members were against self-regulation at the RICS, Young says that in his dealings with “hundreds” of members in the past three months, nobody raised self-regulation as an issue. “This is not on their agenda,” he says. “It doesn’t even come up on the radar. I don’t feel it is a topic members are particularly concerned about.”
The issue that the leadership team has discovered is that the organisation should try to “better express some of the benefits of the current construct with SRB than perhaps we’ve done in the past”, says Samworth.
Clarke adds: “There are always loud voices in the background saying why aren’t you preventing ‘x’ or ‘y’ from happening. [But] one of the challenges for regulators is not getting in the way of innovation if there is a profession that [involves] constant developing skills [such as the] new science involved in sustainability.
“If you stand in the way, you [risk undermining] the organisation. So you’ve got to balance [that] and you don’t do that if you’re distant from the professional body.”
Samworth says it is a “symbiotic relationship.” “[If Clarke] fails, we fail, and if we fail, he fails,” he says. “We all have a common purpose – the pursuit of doing the right thing in the public interest. [Not] the members’, the public interest. One follows the other.”
Tackling legacy perceptions
The team must win back member support after recent events. Levels of member engagement at the RICS might well be reflected in the current composition of the governing council. Of the 29 seats on governing council at the time of writing, eight were elected by members, while four were appointed by the governing council. Nine hold uncontested seats that members were not able to vote on, while eight are empty. Their terms began in July this year.
However, Samworth ventures to suggest “things have changed” in the months since the governing council and senior vice-president elections. He cites approaches from a “few senior people” in recent weeks who have expressed an interest in both.
“The timing of where the institution was nine months ago and where it is now, I would like to think is in a slightly different place,” says Samworth. “If some of those elections were held now, you’d have a different slate of people and a different outcome. That is evidenced by some of the comments I’ve had from some people who are now interested in participating in broader leadership of the RICS than perhaps was the case nine, 12 months ago.”
Samworth is upbeat that wider perceptions of the RICS’ governance structure will change as the transformation plan takes effect. While there is no set date for the next elections, they are expected to take place around a year from now. New members will be in post for 1 January 2025.
The timing of where the institution was nine months ago and where it is now, I would like to think is in a slightly different place – Martin Samworth
“There may be some legacy issues still with people’s perception about GC and some of the things that have happened recently, but you can take it from the three of us – and hopefully Nigel will be around for a while, because he is excellent to have on the team – that we’re intent on continuing with the transformation programme that we’re going through and delivering the things we’ve talked about as befits our respective roles,” he says.
“That sentiment and view will continue to hopefully change and improve as we deliver on some of the things that we’re intent on putting in place.”
In the meantime, Young says the RICS has “to get better at communicating”. Having previously viewed the RICS through the lens of the APC, Young professes he did not have much prior knowledge of the organisation, beyond some work with it during the pandemic alongside other real estate COOs on engaging with the government.
“I had no idea the RICS did quite so much until I arrived here,” he says. “We need to communicate more about what not just what we do and how we’ve improved and transformed, but also what we expect governing council to do.
“I think people look back a couple of years and saw the turmoil that happened as the governing council had to work very hard then. So people are going: ‘I’m not sure I can spend the time, I’m running my practice or whatever [else]’.
“If we can help people understand more about what the future of our governing council should be around strategy, we’ll get a lot more people [motivated to] give back as a member by being on a governing council that does strategy for an organisation [they] care about.”
On the whole, however, the team is emboldened by the feedback it has received so far on its transformation plan. Samworth points to ongoing interest from younger generations in joining the profession and getting more involved in the RICS.
“I take some comfort from the fact loads of people want to join and become part of the organisation,” says Samworth.” A lot of people want to play more of a part in it than they did before, because I think they can sense something’s changing. We’re not done yet.”
The letter that led to a board walkout
The RICS is more than a year into the process of implementing all of the recommendations from Lord Michael Bichard’s review into the RICS. The last thing it needed was another internal row – one that would ultimately cause the mass resignation of its standards and regulation board.
The departures that took place in June stemmed from a letter that president and governing council chair Ann Gray sent the SRB’s then-chair, Dame Janet Paraskeva. In that letter, Gray summoned Paraskeva to a meeting, stating: “The possible outcome at the end of this process is that you could be formally served with notice to terminate your contract for services with RICS.” Paraskeva responded by resigning, saying she “did not believe [she] would get a fair hearing”. The rest of the SRB followed suit swiftly after.
In the weeks that followed, the RICS published a Q&A on the events and held face-to-face meetings with some members to respond to concerns raised. Three months on, the team is responding in more detail to mounting pressure from several members to clarify the extent of the authority that Gray acted with when she contacted Paraskeva.
Samworth says he was not directly involved in the content or issuing of the letter, but that governing council were aware there was a concern around a potential breach of contractual obligations. “They were aware the president was going to ask for some information and background to that concern,” he says.
Samworth says Gray constructed her letter with advice from head of HR as well as with “external employment advice”, and “in accordance with the global appointments model”.
“It was required to express what an outcome might be, but it was not definitive on what the outcome was going to be, because the meeting indicated that what was suggested in the letter was a possible outcome,” says Samworth.
The contents of the letter were not shared explicitly with the governing council before it was issued. “That would have been an inappropriate thing to do, because it was an employment-related issue that related to a very senior independent person, and GC was aware of the potential consequences of the conversation [that] was going to take place,” says Samworth.
It would be fair to say that there hasn’t been enough evolution here at the RICS over the past few years – Justin Young
Samworth says all was “undertaken exactly how it was supposed to be done” and in accordance with protocols for a “meeting of that nature”. He posits that Paraskeva would have been aware of the global appointments model and what the process entailed.
Samworth disagreed with the notion that the wording of the letter left little room for interpretation. “The word ‘could’ is in the letter, that expresses what the outcome could be,” he says, adding that the meeting, which never took place, would have provided scope for explanation and other possible outcomes.
The global appointments model, he says, is ostensibly designed to set out a potential outcome that is “respectful and helpful to an individual; that they don’t go to a meeting and discover… a conversation about something they’re not prepared for”.
Following the resignations, the global appointments model will be reviewed along with other protocols. The RICS is fully backing Gray, who will serve out her full term as president, on the matter. The organisation also confirmed Paraskeva has not launched legal action or served notice of constructive dismissal following the events.
“We’re always looking to learn from situations as they arise,” says Samworth. “Fortunate or unfortunate as they may be, there’s things we can take away from it. We are reviewing various protocols and methodologies around the organisation at the moment. That’s an ongoing part of the transformation programme that we’re in.”
He adds: “I personally think there are some things we can do to be more streamlined, more commercial in some of those processes, and some of those decisions… will be for the betterment of the organisation, better for our members and better for all of our stakeholders.”
Young says the RICS is trying to be more agile in terms of improving its processes and to continually scrutinise the way it works, from governance to delivering tech and marketing.
“It would be fair to say that there hasn’t been enough evolution here at the RICS over the past few years,” he says.
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