Landscape Institute Independent Review 19th January 2021

Implementation of the findings of the 2021 LI Independent Review by Catherine Brown

The Landscape Institute’s Board of Trustees commissioned an Independent Review in 2020-21 in relation to a number of issues including governance, member behaviour, and ensuring that the LI was fit for the future. The findings of the review are summarised below and were accepted by the Board and a report on its implementation was issued December 2021. The review is misleading. It includes the following claims:

1. A truly member-led organisation:  While the chief executive is ultimately accountable to the Board of Trustees, the LI President now provides line management on the Board’s behalf – including objective-setting, personal development, and appraisals – ensuring oversight of the LI’s operations lies with an appointed representative of our membership. Comment: The statements that the CEO ‘reports to the Board’ and the President ‘provides line management’ have no relevance to the objective of creating a member-led organisation
2. Transparency: Members can now access formal records of Board and Council meetings, with minutes published in the LI members’ area as a matter of course within three weeks of each meeting. Comment: In 2022 most of the Board minutes were withheld and the Council meetings were either withheld or redacted
3. Staff survey: An independent, externally benchmarked staff survey will anonymously measure staff satisfaction in future years. Comment: The 2023 Staff Survey was independent but it did ‘a clear segmentation exercise and regular robust, externally benchmarked surveys to determine satisfaction and engagement amongst corporate and individual members. (Recs 5-7)’
4. The symptoms of the problems which led to the Independent Review persisted in 2022: ‘high levels of staff turnover and sickness, and the resignation of a number of both elected and appointed Board members’.
5. The Membership: Comment: it remains the case that, as stated below, ‘the main resource that the LI has at its disposal to achieve these objectives is its membership’ but steps have not been taken to increase participation. It remains the case that branch chairs do not have access to the email addresses of branch members and that individual members can obtain contact details of other individual members only by making requests to the secretariat. When a group of members wish to requisition an EGM the secretariat refuses to send an email to the membership on their behalf. There is no evidence that, as claimed below, ‘the organisation listens carefully and engages effectively with members and stakeholders’.
6. Finance: there is no evidence that, as advised below, ‘the organisation’s resources are applied in ways that maximise the benefits to its purpose’. In the 2021-22 reporting year the entire income from practice fees (£170,000) was spent on an attempt to remove the democratic President Elect. The publicity consequent on this attempt caused severe harm to the public reputation of the Landscape Institute.
7. Jellicoe Group: regarding the recommendation that the Board should be ‘tasked to decide whether the material circulated by those associated with the “Jellicoe group” breaches the code of professional conduct’. This was done and it was found that there was no case to answer.
8. Disciplinary Decision Making. The Review recommended ‘the establishment of a regulatory sub-committee of the Board with majority lay membership (Rec 29)’. This has not been done.

Findings of the 2021 LI Independent Review

As the Board recognised when they commissioned the Independent Review, the Institute is experiencing some substantial and long-standing problems of culture and behaviour and leadership which are impeding its ability to deliver its strategy and to function effectively. Symptoms of these problems have included high levels of staff turnover and sickness, and the resignation of a number of both elected and appointed Board members over recent years.

I recommend that the Board should give careful consideration to the establishment of a change programme with clear CEO and Board sponsorship, to deliver the recommendations of this review to which the Board agree, and build on them for the future. (Rec 1)

The Institute exists “to protect, conserve and enhance the natural and built environment for the benefit of the public by promoting the arts and sciences of landscape architecture.” (Royal charter 5.1). The three goals of the LI set out in its strategy are influence, relevance and growth

The main resource that the LI has at its disposal to achieve these objectives is its membership. It is the members of the LI, supported and facilitated on occasion by the Institute, who build the influence of the profession, ensure its relevance, and attract others to join the LI and indeed to work in the field. An area that was raised as a concern with me by a number of members, including younger members, was the balance between appropriate central quality control of policy development and the ability for members with expertise to put that expertise at the service of the Institute and the membership more widely. In the absence of regular, robust, segmented feedback from the membership as a whole it is difficult for the Board and secretariat to contextualise concerns raised by small groups of engaged members, and ensure that they are focusing on the activities that will deliver the biggest benefits to target membership segments.

I recommend that consideration be given to changes to the policy development and communication process to enable the membership to contribute more effectively to the realisation of the strategic objective of increasing the influence of the Institute. (Rec 2)

I also recommend that the organisation reviews its approach to external engagement. The Board should review arrangements for stakeholder analysis and engagement, and identify how they can gather feedback from key stakeholder groups on a regular basis in order to underpin planning to maximise the LI’s relationship capital and leverage. (Rec 3)

I further recommend a stronger and more effective and consistent focus on the membership, including a clear segmentation exercise and regular robust, externally benchmarked surveys to determine satisfaction and engagement amongst corporate and individual members. (Recs 5-7)

I recommend the development of a three year strategy implementation plan to support the delivery of the existing overall strategy which enables the Board to understand potential income flows and give meaningful guidance on the allocation of scarce resources. (Rec 4)

2.2 Leadership The LI has a well designed Board that includes members of the Institute and independent trustees. My recommendations are designed to support the Board to be as effective as the best trustee boards, which requires them to:

• ensure that the organisation listens carefully and engages effectively with members and stakeholders;

• take timely decisions in the best interests of the organisation and communicate them well; and

• ensure that those decisions are implemented effectively and the organisation’s resources are applied in ways that maximise the benefits to its purpose.

There was a high degree of consensus amongst the people who spoke to me in the course of the Independent Review that the Board is not well supported or effective – papers are late; there is too much presentation by staff and not enough debate; minutes and action logs are not shared in a timely fashion; and there is a concern that the Board is “rubber stamping” decisions already made by the executive rather than providing effective challenge in a timely way. There were similar concerns raised by Advisory Council members about the difficulty of engaging properly with long and complex papers, provided too late for proper review.

I recommend a programme of intensive Board development alongside significant improvements to the support given to the Board, including the employment of a qualified Board Secretary with a direct reporting line to the Board, in order to enable it to carry out its critical oversight role effectively. (Recs 8-16).

The Board and Board Secretary should focus on ensuring that proposals are brought to the Board at a stage when they can be meaningfully shaped and engaged with.

I also recommend a programme of support and development for the CEO and executive leadership team and a change in the management arrangements for the CEO. (Recs 11-12)

I recommend that the code, panel pool and regulations should be rapidly reviewed, any adjustments required made by the Board in line with their powers, and the process laid out in the by-laws be actively used to address issues as they arise. (Recs 17 and 18)

I recommend that a panel be convened by the Board, and tasked to decide whether the material circulated by those associated with the “Jellicoe group” breaches the code of professional conduct, and whether any action should be taken against, or further guidance given to, those involved. The panel should be asked to consider a range of correspondence that has come to the attention of the Board’s officers as part of this review. (Rec 19)

I further recommend a number of improvements to member and volunteer engagement policies, whistleblowing, staff engagement and staff surveys, an annual Board approved improvement plan to be embedded within the CEOs objectives and 360 degree CEO feedback as part of the annual appraisal process. (Rec 20-24)

There is an opportunity for the Institute to make some further changes to their governance that would enhance the effectiveness of the Board, and improve the effectiveness and credibility of their regulatory arrangements. There is no conflict between the interests of the membership and the charitable objectives of the organisation as long as the LI recognises that it is in the best long term interests of the profession to put the public interest first in the small number of cases in which there may be an apparent conflict between the two. One of the ways in which professional bodies maintain confidence in their regulatory activities on behalf of the public is by ensuring a lay majority in disciplinary decision making.

I have therefore recommended the establishment of a regulatory sub-committee of the Board with majority lay membership (Rec 29).

I recommend that the Board consider a number of changes to the governance arrangements and work up a set of proposals informed by my recommendations and the work previously undertaken. This set of proposals should then be discussed with the Advisory Council with a view to taking them to a General Meeting of the membership convened for the purpose, where they can be decided upon with proper member scrutiny and input. (Rec 25-31)

2.5 Operational delivery and resource management Feedback from staff and volunteers and my own observations of the functioning of the LI led me to conclude that there had been insufficient focus on the principles and practice of good human and financial resource management and operational delivery.

Appointment processes (to the Board, and to the invited fellowship) were also consistently described as excessively slow and characterised by poor administration and communication. Concerns were also raised about the financial controls and reporting arrangements by the previous Head of Finance. Management told me they were aware of the issues and had plans to address them.

Expertise in both financial management and organisational development/human resources management is lacking in both the management team and the Board

I recommend that the CEO’s objectives and work programme over the next 18 months focus on improving the management and operational delivery capabilities of the LI, and that he give consideration to increasing the financial management and human resources skills available to the management team. (Recs 32-35)

In the course of the review I recommended an independent internal audit of the financial controls to give the Board assurance in line with their responsibility for the organisation’s assets. (Rec 36).

I further recommend a brief, high level independent review or internal audit of controls around the IT investment programme. (Rec 37)