Trustee Board update March 2022

In my second meeting chairing the Trustee Board I was able to kick off with some feedback on the discussions I’ve had with trustees and council members over the past few months on how we might improve the function of board meetings.

Following this, it was agreed that the council meetings will now including a ‘surgery session’ standing item, which will be used as a forum for council members to proactively raise any issues they want me, the director general, and his team to be aware of.

We’ll also ensure there are more opportunities for the council to get involved with the engineering knowledge team’s work.

Running of the institution

There were a few items on the agenda to do with the day-to-day running of the ICE.

The Trustee Board discussed the ICE’s Defined Benefit Scheme and agreed next steps to mitigate the risk of the scheme being over-funded.

We reviewed the budget for ICE Connect – a substantial IT project to overhaul ICE’s membership management tool – and agreed to a budget increase.

The group’s annual accounts were reviewed and approved, and the annual report will shortly be available on the website.

Governance

Senior Vice President Keith Howells provided an update on the roles and responsibilities governance review.

It was noted that the review has progressed well with a number of different stakeholders approached during the consultation period.

The final report will be added to the agenda for the June Trustee Board meeting.

Chartered Infrastructure Engineer

I was personally delighted to see the results of the Chartered Infrastructure Engineer ballot - a sentiment that was happily echoed by the rest of the Trustee Board.

Feedback from members that the trustees had spoken to was broadly positive and we look forward to hearing from the Privy Council in due course.