The President Writes.
Annual Report 2006

As this is my penultimate column, I thought I’d reserve my “retirement accolades” till next time and report on and expand some of the matters mentioned in the Trustees’ Report and Accounts, which are published elsewhere in this issue.

As highlighted last time and noted again here, there have been significant tweaks in the management of the Institute that will make reporting lines more transparent in the future. In particular, the Chairs of the Standing Committees having a fiduciary respons¬ibility are now candidates for confirmation as Trustees at the upcoming AGM. Not mentioned in the Trustees’ Report is the recently elected incoming Chair of the Corrosion Science Division, Dr. Gareth Hinds from NPL, who will also be a candidate for election as Trustee. I would like to thank the outgoing Chair, Dr. Dave Worsley from the University of Swansea, for his efforts and assistance over the last 2 years. The CSD, like all the Institute’s standing committees, will be asked to look at their Terms of Reference as a part of a regular review of processes and procedures commensurate with our obligations under Engineering Council and Science Council registration. In order to support this process, the Trustees have recently agreed to engage an independent management and IT consultant to formally review the Institute’s procedures at Corrosion House. We anticipate that the report shall be completed by the AGM where we will brief the membership on its recommendations.

The Institute finances, as reported in the accounts, are in reasonable health. However, hidden in the consolidated figures, is a drop in the surplus on the Institute’s operations to about £5.6k (from over £13k last year). This has mainly arisen as a result of a drop in income from training courses and membership subscriptions. We need to watch this carefully in order to stabilise or preferably reverse the downward trend and an increase of 5% in the subscription fees should help. Notwithstanding the decreased surplus, the Trustees have agreed to reduce the mortgage on Corrosion House by a further 10% and are greatly aided in doing this by the generous legacy of David Lewis.

Operations within Correx Ltd., which include conference activities and ICATS, had an increased surplus of just over £9k (from £1.2k last year), giving rise to a small tax liability. Currently over 20 companies have registered with ICATS, all of whom have sent at least one operative to the “Train the Trainers” course. Consequently, there are almost 50 registered ICATS Trainers. While the numbers of painter operatives is currently just under 100, we anticipate that this will increase dramatically after publication, in the next month, of the National Sector Scheme Document 19A, mandating ICATS registration of all operatives for Highways works from January 2008. We are currently gearing up to service this increased level of demand. However, it is important to realise that while ICATS is unlikely to generate substantial revenue to the Institute it will raise our profile very significantly.

Finally, as the Institute moves to the future, we need to cope and manage with a significant demographic decline in the number of new entries to the profession. This is a problem shared with many other Institutes and we may need to consider further consolidation of our activities, and potential partnerships with other Institutes, in order to safeguard our unique voice.

Stuart Lyon, President