President S Speaking Notes for Council Thursday, 5Th March 2009
Minutes of the Meeting of Council held on 7 March 2013 at 10am
at Belgravia House, 62/64 Horseferry Road, London, SW1P 2AF
Members
Ms J R Molyneux (President in the Chair)
Prof D Argyle
Mr C T Barker
Ms A K Boag Mrs R J Jennings
Dr K Braithwaite* Mr P C Jinman
Prof N Burrows* Dr J B Johnson
Prof E R Cameron Professor P Lees
Mr D F Catlow Prof S A May*
Mrs B D Cottrell Dr R P Moore
Professor S M Crispin* Mrs P J Nute#
Dr J V Davies Dr T J Nuttall*
Mr R Davis Mr R D Partridge
Prof S Dawson Professor J S Price
Mr M F Elliott Professor S W J Reid
Prof G C W England Miss C F Shield
Mrs C N Freedman Colonel N Smith
Mr N P Gibbens Mr R F Stephenson*
Mrs C A Goldie Mrs C J Tapsfield-Wright
Mr C J Gray Lord A J Trees*
Professor M W Herrtage Mr C W Tufnell*
Mrs L V Hill Dr B P Viner
Mrs A K Jeffery* Ms J Webb
* Absent
# Left at lunchtime or before the end of the afternoon meeting
In Attendance:
Mr Nick Stace, Chief Executive & Secretary
Mr Gordon Hockey, Head of legal Services & Registrar
Mrs Kissick, Chair of the Veterinary Nurses Council
Mrs Liz Butler, Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee
Nicola South, Customer Experience Manager
1. The President welcomed members to Council and drew their attention to an amendment made in the ‘Speaking at Council’ guidance which removed the text “on any one occasion” to now read “Speeches should not last more than 5 minutes – except with the permission of the Chairman”. She added that this change would become permanent if passed in the Byelaws paper later in the meeting.
2. The President added that the report of the Audit and Risk Committee ARC report had not been included in the recent mailing and would be taken as Agenda Item 8E with a short report from the Trust as item 8F.
Apologies for Absence
3. Apologies had been received from:
Dr Braithwaite
Professor Burrows
Professor Crispin
Mrs Jeffery
Professor May
Professor Nuttall
Mr Stephenson
Lord Trees
Mr Tufnell
4. The president explained that the Chief Veterinary Officer had informed her that he would need to arrive slightly late. She then welcomed three visitors:
· Mrs Kissick, Chair of the Veterinary Nurses Council
· Mrs Liz Butler, Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee
· Nicola South, Customer Experience Manager
Declarations of Interest
5. The President asked if any members of Council had new declarations of interests to make.
6. Professor Dawson declared that she had become director of a charitable company called SAVSNET LTD which is involved in small animal disease surveillance.
7. The President asked Professor Dawson and all other Council members to make sure that their declarations on the intranet were up to date.
President’s Introduction
8. The President began her introduction by explaining that Professor Duncan Maskell had resigned from RCVS Council and she congratulated him on his recent promotion to Head of Biological Sciences at Cambridge University. She advised that a new Cambridge representative on Council was awaited.
9. She advised Council that she did not think that this Council meeting would be overly lengthy but anticipated that the meeting in June would be in order to accommodate discussions on the Practice Standards and First Rate Regulator schemes.
10. The President told Council that she was enjoying a very positive and fruitful working relationship with the new Chief executive, Nick Stace.
11. She introduced Mr Nick Royle's appointment as the new Executive Director to the RCVS Charitable Trust.
12. With regard to current discussions as to the number of veterinary students and schools in the UK, the President explained that it was not the role of the College to take a view on the subject. However, she added that the College would talk to workforce modelling professionals about gathering dataon the subject and would make the data available to those participating in the discussions. This information would be brought back to Council at a later date.
13. The President also congratulated the College’s VN department for the role that they are playing in developing VN standards across Europe, via the VECTAR project.
Minutes of the Meeting held on 1 November 2012
14. Council accepted the Minutes as a true record of the meeting.
Matters Arising
Obituaries
15. The President said that obituaries had been previously circulated for RCVS Past President, Mr Angus Taylor; RCVS Honorary Fellow, Mr Andrew Madel and RCVS Honorary Associate, Professor Sir Colin Spedding.
16. Council observed a minute’s silence for these colleagues and all other members that had passed away since the previous Council meeting.
Council Correspondence and Matters for Report
RCVS Day 2013
17. The President said that the format of the 2013 RCVS Day is likely to be the same as in 2012
Date: Confirmed as Friday 5 July 2013
Venue: Royal College of Physicians, Regents Park
Speaker: Andy Stringer, Director of Veterinary Programmes at the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA)
CEO Update
18. The Chief Executive reminded Council that he had promised them a transparent update including both positive and negative information. He summarised a few key areas of development since the previous Council meeting.
Refurbishment
19. The refurbishment of the interior of the College building was almost complete and within budget. The Chief Executive encouraged Council Members to look around the building and see the changes for themselves. He confirmed that staff had got rid of 600 bags of rubbish, recycled 10 van loads of furniture and put 800 boxes into off-site storage. The refurbishment had already brought about a significant change to working practices with more emphasis being placed on digital document management rather than maintaining paper records.
Restructure
20. The Chief Executive confirmed that he had reduced the management team to seven people and that this reduction combined with weekly meetings had brought about greater understanding and communication amongst staff. The Chief Executive introduced two newly recruited members of staff - Nicola South, Customer Experience Manager and Nick Royle , the first Chief Executive of the RCVS Charitable Trust. He highlighted Mr Royle’s background at the Cochrane Collaboration and said he was delighted that the Trust would be able to benefit from his extensive experience in Evidence-based Medicine.
First Rate Regulator (FRR)
21. The Chief Executive informed Council that the consultation on the RCVS’s efficacy as a regulator had been more successful than anticipated at reaching out to the public and profession. He added that a fifth of the profession had responded to the consultation and that a third of complainants contacted had participated in detailed interviews. He said that he would report more fully to Council on this initiative once the data received had been analysed.
Practice Standards Scheme
22. The Chief Executive said that a new initiative to examine the College’s Practice Standards Scheme had begun. The initial intention was to understand what the profession and the public think the Practice Standards Scheme should be accomplishing. He added that Core standards should be inspected on all premises and that the College would be responding to feedback received on how to improve the scheme further.
Governance reform
23. The Chief Executive said that a lot of work had already been undertaken, the result of which was a rigorously thought through paper backed by key stakeholders which had the potential to bring about good and significant change. He said that Council would continue to be involved in strategic decisions for the College and that this could already be evidenced by the three additional meetings of Council scheduled in 2013.
Legislative Reform Order
24. The Chief Executive confirmed that the Legislative Reform Order had been made on 17th January 2013 and would come into effect on 6th April 2013. He added that recruitment for membership of DC and PIC committees was in process and that of applications received to date, one third had been from lay applicants.
25. In summary of the changes previously mentioned, the Chief Executive said that changes within the RCVS had brought about a quickening of pace but also some unease. The First Rate Regulator was the most significant endeavour and had been a very public way to ask for feedback. He said that in relation to the FRR initiative, the emphasis would now be on Council to work through results of the consultation.
26. The Chief Executive said that he believed that the recent changes in the RCVS would introduce the right structure for now in effectively managing governance and risk; that the FRR scheme would enable the College to learn how it can improve as a regulator including the Practice Standards Scheme and that future plans for the College would be discussed at the additional meeting of Council in September.
Staff Engagement Survey
27. The Chief Executive gave a short presentation to Council about the recent Staff Engagement Survey. The results of the survey suggest that the RCVS are at the lower end of engagement.
28. He outlined areas where the RCVS scored well:
- staff do see the link between their jobs and the organisation
- they feel that there is a good team dynamic
- they have a good sense of pride in their work
- they will go the extra mile for the organisation
- they felt that there was no bullying, harassment or discrimination amongst staff
29. He outlined areas that need improvement:
- Change management (he noted that the consultation had been conducted before a lot of internal changes had taken place )
- Work environment (he noted that a lot of improvements had been made post the survey)
- Internal communications (he noted that internal communications had already improved)
- Working with Council
30. The Chief Executive went on to explain that 37% of staff felt that there was bullying from Council Members; that they felt they received a lack of respect from Council Members and that Council Members did not give enough consideration to staff workloads. He said that the word ‘bullying’ was an integral part of the survey and was not a word initiated by staff which suggested that it might be too strong a word in this context although there was clearly a concern that needed to be addressed. He also added that there seemed to be a disconnect in this area as notwithstanding the above results on bullying, as part of the FRR survey, the 12 Council members interviewed had said that they felt staff were effective and supportive. [Afternote: further investigation revealed that the problem was isolated to just a few Council Members.]
31. The Chief Executive explained that two members of staff had been seconded to help improve staff engagement and that other measures to improve engagement had been put in place, including the improvement of the office environment and providing more frequent and detailed explanations of decisions Council makes.
32. On inviting questions from Council, a member thanked the Chief Executive for his presentation and work to date. The Chief Executive thanked Council for their backing of his ‘warts and all ‘ approach stating that the more open Council and staff could be the better the organisation would become as a regulator. He ended by saying that the FRR initiative would drive improvements as well as tackle big challenges and that this would be a very exciting period for the RCVS.
College Honours and Awards
33. The President confirmed to Council that the four College honour awardees that were approved at the November 2012 Council Meeting had all accepted their honours.
The recipients are:
Honorary Associateship:
Dr Kirsten Rausing
Honorary Fellowship by Election:
Dr Joy Archer, Mr David Franklin and Mr Colin Whitaker
The President confirmed that the honours would be conferred at the RCVS AGM in July 2013.
Matters for Decision by Council
Review of RCVS Governance Structure
34. The President introduced the paper and invited comments.
35. Concern was expressed, in relation to the proposed decoupling of committee and Council meetings (paragraph 11, fourth indent) that committee members should have ample notice of the dates of meetings. This was accepted. The aim was to give committees more flexibility over their working arrangements.
36. There was concern that the Presidential team and Treasurer should remain in touch with the business of all the main committees (paragraph 11, third indent). In discussion it was observed that that could be achieved by them attending meetings as observers, rather than as voting members. It was also noted that the chairmen of the main committees would serve on the Operational Board.
37. It was recalled that the PP+2 report had recommended that there should be a single appeals committee, and it was agreed that the case for that would be considered further.
38. There was a request for clarification, in due course, of the intended mode of operation of the Science Advisory Panel, and it was suggested that the possibility of recorded votes in Council and committees should be considered further.