Hay, all former presidents. They have been discussing the matter by email, and have arranged to meet on 2 May, when they will finalise their scoping report. That report will be sent to “The Executive” (President, Past President, Senior Vice- and Junior Vice-), and when approved, it will be circulated to Council members for further comment.


5. ACES/RICS/CLG Asset Management Award. In the absence of the RICS Liaison Officer, the President reported on this item. It was being considered that the three organisations might combine to create a joint award. The matter will be raised again at the next joint meetings. These were intended to be “after Easter”, and the President confirmed she would check when they will be held.


This subject was then combined with the next item, which was the ACES Award for Excellence. For some years, numbers of entries for this have been low, mainly it is felt because local government officers tend not to be good at self-promotion! The Senior Vice-President, Tom Fleming, said he would be reminding Branches, and given that the deadline for entries was not until October, he would keep reminding. There was a suggestion that the quality of the eventual conference presentation resulting from the Award and its reception might be helped by attendance from (and thus acknowledgement by) the winner’s work manager.


6. Promotional Material. Tom Fleming had been asked at the previous meeting to obtain samples of the promotional material that he had in mind. He produced a number of items, including coasters, mouse mats, key rings, pens, jute and cotton bags, coffee mugs and portfolio folders.


It was agreed that an order be placed for coasters and good quality pens, cotton bags and folders, the latter two items for Conference attendees only. The cost of this (folders particularly) was not insignificant, but it was felt that the advertisement they represented for ACES in future use at meetings warranted it.


7. Publications. Betty Albon echoed previous incumbents of the editorial post in remarking on the difficulty of obtaining articles from members. For the Spring Terrier, 5 of the 8 branches supplied a report on their activities and she asked for contributions from the remaining 3. She stated that she was hoping to theme each edition, such as the “national” interest of the Portas Review, but suggested that as all branches had guest speakers at their meetings, a report on those presentations should be a reasonable proposition.


It was suggested that questions and answers that have been on the website Forum could be made into an article.


There was discussion as to whether the 500 print run was attractive to advertisers, but it was felt that advertisers


THE TERRIER - Summer 2012


should understand the quality of the readership – mainly Chartered Surveyors - and the fact that the journals were read by teams of staff and public, not just the recipient member. This increased readership and exposure of the Terrier enormously.


Discussion then turned to the website which is now considered old-fashioned, difficult to navigate and not up to date. Branches are also not uploading Minutes etc. It was agreed that the Secretary and Paul Over would make enquiries regarding updating, including approaching Past Member Steve Howe and his colleagues who had made such an excellent initial job of it.


8. DCLG Property Identifiers. The President reported that DCLG had announced at a meeting with ACES and RICS the creation of a series of publicly available property indicators aimed at more efficient joint working and impressing on chief executives the importance of their property holdings. John Connell is leading on this and he is providing articles in The Terrier. A consultation paper would be produced at the end of April (there has been a delay while further internal consultation has taken place – Editor), and the President stated that it was important for members to respond. The indicators may be mandatory, and apparently EU law will be making some property attributes mandatory in 2013. It was felt while this puts property back on councils’ agendas, some of the attributes may be ‘challenging’ to make publicly available (article in this edition - Editor).


9. Business Forum. ACES is part of this Forum, our representatives being Jeremy Pilgrim and Richard Wynne. The Forum has now asked us to be part of a Commercial Property Taskforce. It was felt that as an organisation ACES is working closely with government and is being consulted on an increasing range of issues. There has however been a recent occasion when DCLG has implied to a member council that ACES has endorsed an initiative, when that is not the case – ACES was merely at the stage of discussing it. It was agreed that ACES must be forceful and clear about when it has endorsed policies and when it is assisting DCLG by providing practical advice and case work.


Given that ACES has co-ordinators for a range of subjects, concern was expressed that the specific co-ordinators for some initiatives did not appear to have been consulted. It was agreed that co-ordinators should become more involved.


10. RICS Training for Strategic Asset Management. The President expressed concern that whilst strategic asset management was an important issue a few years ago, the knowledge and expertise was being lost as people left local government. New staff taking over the overview role did not have that expertise. She has spoken to both RICS and DCLG about this, and is aiming at her Presidential Conference to be interactive, offering an element of training for attendees.


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