Update from our CEO
Annual report 2022
In August 2022 Alan joined the cii as chief executive from the Royal Institute of British Architects where he had served in a similar capacity for seven years, having previously been the group chief operating officer of the law society.
He is a chartered accountant and a fellow of three institutes – the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand, and the Australian Institute of Company Directors – as well as an honorary fellow of the Korean Institute of Architects.
We caught up with him in early summer 2023 to find out his growing impressions of the CII, as well as understanding a little more about the five-year strategic plan he announced in April 2023.
What were your initial impressions of the CII?
From a personal point of view, I was delighted to join the organisation. I’ve come from other professional membership bodies and was aware of the great reputation that the CII had. I had a really good lead-in to the organisation with Helen Phillips and others, so it wasn’t as if I was arriving on day one and starting afresh; actually I had probably about five months of induction into the organisation and getting to understand a lot of the issues that it faced. That was really helpful. So, I felt that I could hit the ground running.
At the end of 2021 we conducted a major member consultation piece called Shaping the Future Together, and then gave feedback on what we were told to members in early 2022. To a large degree, therefore, 2022 was a year of transition that enabled me to have engagement and involvement in the creation of the Strategic Plan that then emerged from the consultation.
In what state did you find the CII when you joined?
Financially, we had taken a significant hit as a result of the pandemic. We had used reserves to fund the organisation whilst revenue had dropped significantly for a period of time. We were also in the middle of a very significant IT transformation
programme which had had some challenges, meaning that it had gone on longer than anticipated and at a higher cost than we had estimated at the start of the project.
So, whilst the Group overall was making a surplus and had sufficient cash reserves, the Institute’s operating entity was in a challenging financial situation when I joined, making a loss and having very low levels of reserves.
My priorities as I joined were clear – to manage the cash reserves, reduce the operating loss, then move on to fix the system issues, and also start to build the vision for the organisation going forward in 2023.
I am really pleased with the progress we have made against these priorities in the last few months. We are on track to deliver an improved operating result in the Institute entity in 2023 as we continue our journey to return the Institute to sustainable operating surpluses and improved levels of reserves, and thanks in large part to the work of Mat Mallett, our new Chief Digital Information Officer, and his team, the introduction of our new CRM system has gone exceptionally well with very few issues or complaints.
What about the quality of the CII team you inherited?
The team here are really passionate about what they do, and that’s been absolutely brilliant to be a part of. They genuinely want to support our members. I think we’ve given them lots of challenges with systems issues and with some of the processes that were in place, but they’ve weathered those storms really well, and I think they’ve done a fantastic job.
Whilst we have made big improvements there’s still a way to go. I want us to become a place where people go, “Wow, that’s brilliant, I really want to go there and work.” That’s what we aspire to be.
Overall, I would just pay tribute to the staff team because they’ve done an amazing job in very tough circumstances over the last few years.
How did you go about formulating the new Strategic Plan?
In late 2022 we started work on the new strategy. We were keen to make it a really collaborative process, with two full-day workshops where the CII Group Board and the Executive worked together, along with numerous conversations with members and stakeholders before we put pen to paper.
It’s split into our goals for 2023, the basic fixes that we need to sort out to give us a launchpad for success, and then the goals for 2024 and beyond. We wanted as much as possible for it to be visibly transparent in terms of how we measure success, and we also wanted it to be grounded in reality, hence the specific, quantifiable KPIs for each theme. We will report back on our progress against these measures on an annual basis.
How would you summarise what the Strategic Plan is trying to achieve?
Our vision is that the organisation will help CII and PFS professionals develop greater financial resilience for individuals and society. It’s not what we do for ourselves as an Institute, ultimately our success is measured by what we do for members and for the public. We are all facing more uncertain times, so the plan identifies risks and talks about times of uncertainty, when people need access to the best knowledge to be able to make informed decisions.
Overall, the plan’s purpose is threefold. Firstly, to ground our activities over the next five years in reality, with goals and measures to be achieved. Secondly, to provide a narrative about where we are going and to what end. And lastly, to bring people together with a common purpose. To an extent, there’s something in there for everybody, whilst it is specific enough to say, “We’re doing this, and not that,” which I think is really important.
The hard part is what’s next. Essentially, the plan is a roadmap, but the route might change over time and it therefore has to be flexible as well. So, every year we’ll reflect on the overarching strategies and say: “That’s still fine, it’s relevant, but actually the actions we’re going to take this year are focused on this, that and the other because that’s where the world is now.” The document gives us the latitude to do that but within an agreed framework and direction, and it allows us then to take opportunities and meet challenges as they emerge.
How well do you feel the CII operates as a membership organisation?
My view is that we’ve been a fantastic organisation for over 100 years but the focus very much in recent times has been on exams and qualifications. What I would like to do is to pivot the organisation to realise fully its value as a professional membership body with a real focus on professionalism, professional standards, membership and member engagement supported by all that world-class learning that we’ve done brilliantly for ages.
Currently, the membership offer is not fully formed in the way I would expect to see it in a professional membership body. All of the skills are there but what we need to be better at is engaging with our members on their career journeys. If you look in detail, with facets such as our categories of membership and the examinations process there are lots of gaps and overlaps in it all. The Strategic Plan addresses in detail how we aim to improve in this area.
The other huge asset that we have, is our member volunteer network. We’ve got 55 local institutes and 26 PFS regional committees which are the front of house of the Institute and we want to be able to better support them to thrive in the
future as well.
What role should the CII have in influencing policy?
I believe that we’ve got to be bolder in advocating for the public good externally in the future. There are definitely times where we need to collaborate with our trade body colleagues around the sector because it makes sense to club together for a bigger more coherent voice, but there are also times when we need to stand up and be more courageous in our advocacy and our voice, whether it’s with the FCA as the regulator or government, because we are
the authority in terms of professionalism in this sector.
ALAN VALLANCE
CEO of the Chartered Insurance Institute