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C O N T E X T 1 7 9 : M A R C H 2 0 2 4 49 Director’s cut So why should the IHBC ‘be accorded chartered status… in the public interest and… under government control’? The title of this column comes from one of the two pivotal questions asked by the Privy Council Office (PCO), Royal Charter guardian and guide, when asked about the prospects of a Petition for Charter (our #IHBCPetitionforCharter exploration). That question – basically, ‘ why should we award you a charter’ – is fundamental for the IHBC too, turning on its head our initial position. It is less ‘why should we ask?’ and more ‘why should we receive?’. While our voting members will decide, some reasons for receiving are explored below, with more in my next column. A charter is a complex undertaking with both pros and cons. We are already incorporated as a charity and a company, each representing government oversight through regulation. Chartering adds actions and administrative burdens: deconstructing our incorporation and its regulatory controls to create a new body, tied to government under a charter (an extra and less flexible regulatory framework), which also raises more questions and processes, from a new title to new banking. If chartered, we then return to the ordinary world of commerce and public benefit under more control and regulation. Given those prospects, the PCO’s question is very fair. But there are many positive aspects of a charter that our explorations have uncovered. Crucially, these align perfectly with our collective hopes and ambitions for our own unique approach to personal interdisciplinary conservation competence. Our legacy of corporate plans (posted on our website) is a good place to start. Their over- arching principles have been endorsed regularly by members since our first modern Corporate Plan 2007–10 , adopted at the 2007 AGM. Its principles continue today, condensed into an inflected but simple, iterative sequence of what we want to do: help people; help conservation; and help conservation professionals and specialists. These objectives are an ideal starting point to evaluate the prospective benefits of a charter. They are relevant, as a consolidated and agreed voice from members at AGMs. They are credible, having been tested across the majority of the life of the IHBC. Since their inception they have successfully framed our business planning and reporting to members and trustees. Critically, the corporate plans establish the IHBC’s core charitable motivations. They respond to the terms required by all the UK’s charity regulators and proxies. They then align with the PCO’s terms for chartered status used in this column’s title: being ‘in the public interest’. As we shaped and delivered our corporate plans, so too we served the public interest, specifically and structurally. Such charitable objectives should help to promote the award of a charter in the eyes of the PCO. They may also help us explain to ourselves how and why a charter might help us better deliver our corporate ambitions. Helping people Conservation, today, will be better off if better understood as more than a sideline or top- up interest, or under intimations of being a ‘cult’ used to shade its true objectives. While we are proud of a being a charity, the sector has a mixed reputation, despite regulation. Adding to our charitable standing, the acclaim of an independent, government- tied charter could only enhance perceptions of our probity and of the sector. It would also enhance public awareness of the fundamental objectives of our conservation principles, our role in conservation practice and the public benefits it can offer. That helps ease the burden of proof around the benefits of conservation. A charter would add further standing because the very mechanisms of government itself – through the Privy Council – acknowledge and formalise our direct relationship with government. That should help us voice and serve the public interest, as the status of being some part of the machinery of government would distinguish us from bodies that simply operate under its default regulatory oversight.