Council update - October 2021

Fairness, Inclusion and Respect Committee membership survey and the anti-racism toolkit

Earlier this year the Fairness, Inclusion and Respect Committee worked with the Association for Black and Minority Engineers (AFBE) to develop ICE’s Anti-Racism Toolkit in response to the findings of the racism survey carried out across our membership in 2020. The toolkit, which is primarily aimed at helping SMEs, responds to the widespread reality of racism within our industry and the wider UK, providing advice, training and signposts to best practice.

Three months on from its launch, Council reviewed the toolkit and discussed what had worked well and what more could be done to move people and organisations from a position of being non-racist to actively anti-racist. It was agreed that the survey and the toolkit had been a good first step but that more needed to be done to ensure that ICE continues to take a leadership position in this area by providing the industry with the tools it needs to tackle racism. It was therefore agreed that the toolkit should be regularly updated and made easier to access and use.

Presidential Terms of Reference

Following previous discussions on the key attributes a successful President must possess, the latest version of the Terms of Reference was shared and discussed with the Council. It was a useful discussion with Council members able to feed in ideas that will be incorporated into the Terms of Reference. These will be shared and approved by the Trustee Board in November ahead of ICE’s Nomination Committee meeting in January.

Supporting volunteers

ICE volunteers are the backbone of the organisation, generously giving up their time to support the Institution. This is something we see replicated across the Professional Engineering Institutions and at a recent meeting the CEOs and Director Generals agreed that it would be helpful to provide accredited training for volunteers to support them in their varied roles.

ICE agreed to take the lead in developing this training and over the next few months Council members will share their ideas on relevant training with the Director General’s office.

Thank you

It has been an honour to Chair the Council in my role as President and I was able to use my last meeting to give special thanks to a number of long serving Council members who also reach the end of their elected terms this year.

We look forward to welcoming our new Council members who will begin their roles at December’s meeting where incoming President Ed McCann will be the Chair.