The Landscape Institute (LI) Board of Trustees met for the first time in October under the chair of our President-Elect, Carolin Gohler FLI. We also welcomed Mark Smeeden CMLI as the new Honorary Secretary.
The meeting started with an induction session facilitated by the governance specialist from our legal advisers Russell Cooke, which focused on our collective responsibilities as a Board of Trustees.
This was followed by the meeting itself, which was divided into two sections:
- Finance and Planning
- New Ways of Working and Decision Making
2022-23 Statutory Accounts
- The Board signed off the Audited Statutory Accounts for the year ending 31 March 2023, which had been prepared on a going concern basis. It also agreed actions to address several issues highlighted by the auditors in their post audit management letter.
- The Institute was not alone in having a difficult year financially as a result of tough market conditions with lower commercial income, investment losses, workforce shortages and high levels of staff turnover. Expenditure for the year was however also lower.
- The accounts were approved by the Board as a true and fair view of the results and financial position and will be presented at the Annual General Meeting, when any questions on the matter will be taken.
2023 Annual General Meeting
- This year the Annual General Meeting will be a hybrid meeting and will take place in Cardiff on 11 December. More details will be circulated shortly.
- As reported at the 2022 Annual General Meeting, the Finance & Risk Committee has conducted a tender process for the appointment of a new auditor and the Board approved the appointment of Moore Kingston Smith as our external auditors for an initial three-year period.
2023-24 Business and Delivery Plans and Budget Forecast
- The Board spent some time going through the business and delivery plans for this year, as well as the budget reforecast. As Rob Hughes, our Acting Chief Executive, has already explained, the LI has committed to a disciplined and structured approach that will deliver on a strategy to ensure we can get back to a surplus position within the next strategy period. This work is focused on three core priorities – Membership, People and Systems – and builds in time to implement a new operational IT infrastructure.
- A contract was authorized for work to commence on a new digital home for the LI. Although this will put pressure on the financial position for the current and 2024-25 period, the Board is clear that this expenditure is not optional if the Institute is to improve its services and communications with members streamline its future operations, reduce future running costs, and grow its commercial offer. Huge effort has been put into the procurement of the right system for the Institute and the Honorary Treasurer will be the Board Champion for the project and will report to the Board at each of our meetings on delivery against agreed milestones.
- More details about the Business Plan and work regarding the new digital home , as well as opportunities to get involved, will follow.
New Ways of Working and Decision Making
- The afternoon session started with a presentation from the Centre for Governance & Scrutiny of their report, its findings and recommendations. This will be published shortly.
- The Board of Trustees commissioned the Report from the Centre for Governance & Scrutiny in September 2022. The purpose was two-fold: to have an independent audit of the progress we had made in implementing the recommendations of the 2021 Brown Review into the functioning of the Landscape Institute and to resume the wider review into our new ways of working.
- The Board has now asked the newly established Governance Committee to consider its findings and advise on which recommendations should be taken forward. When agreed they will be combined with the outstanding work from the Brown review into a plan which will be consulted on and implemented as part of our Business Plan for 2023/24 and 2024/25. Our priority is to strengthen the way the different parts of our organisation work together to ensure that members’ views and priorities are at the heart of both our decision-making processes, and our advocacy work on behalf of the profession. Work has already started on this and some of you have already been involved in early pieces of work. There will be regular updates on work taking place and how you will be able to contribute to it.
- The Board agreed several new policies and processes to improve the way our meetings work and support more informed timely decision making. These will be published on our website shortly.
- The Board also received a report on progress by the People, Culture and Change Committee on progress with our priority work to embed a positive culture and change agenda and to address EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) in the Institute itself. A significant element of this is to improve the diversity of our Board, Advisory Council and Committee membership.
- For all updates on this ongoing activity, please see the ‘New Ways of Working’ page on the LI website.
New CMLI and FLI
- Lastly but most importantly we welcomed two new fellows and 26 new chartered members.
