Richard Stephenson's reflections on the November RCVS Council meeting

These notes come with the very big health warning that they are my personal observations and no doubt emphasise those issues which interest me. They are not intended as an unbiased 'minute'.

The November meeting is always interesting in that it is the first occasion in which new members elected in the spring can speak at Council, and both Professor Stephen May and Chris Barker made very active contributions to the debates, while Amanda Boag was one of the eight absences from Council, being abroad lecturing.

The RCVS election process makes the US Presidential election look quite streamlined – it is a full twelve months between submitting nominations and attending your first Council meeting! At this meeting, the announcement was made for the 2013 election! This year, there was the added excitement of seeing our new CEO for the first time. We also get to see the new head master / mistress in action –  in this case Jacqui Molyneux – and she did very well in politely but firmly shepherding Council through the agenda without, as far as I could tell, any major slip-ups.

As always things got off to a sombre start whilst Councillors recalled those members of the profession who have moved onto the next world since the June meeting. Foremost in our thoughts was Jack Walsby a former RCVS President. It was further noted with regret that Walter Taylor, one of the last eight veterinary practitioners, had died at the age of 98 – having still been actively consulting into his nineties.

The Council papers were unusually thin with few real decisions to take so I looked forward optimistically for a short meeting, but one can never really predict Council. The reality was that the meeting extended into the afternoon session with a short 40 minute lunch break and was then followed by an informal Council discussion on evidence-based medicine.

Nick Stace – CEO
The new CEO delivered an opening speech in which he emphasised how privileged he felt to be the first full time CEO of the RCVS. He was looking forward to becoming immersed in the veterinary profession. He was taking some time to readapt to British customs and also some of the traditions of the College, such as wearing ties, gowns and, on special occasions, having a butler! But at a more serious and practical level, he has spent at least one hour with every staff member, spoken one-to-one with most members of Council, visited 10 veterinary practices, Glasgow Vet school and met with every veterinary acronym that there is! He intended to try and spend some time every week out in practice meeting vets and VNs. This approach of active engagement with the profession is a breath of fresh air.

Mr Stace took time to thank Gordon Hockey for his work in the aftermath of the events last year. Gordon had kept the College on a level keel – and there was prolonged spontaneous applause from Council (a rare occurrence).

He praised the College staff as being keen to learn from mistakes and move on with an appetite for change. He said that we need to improve our customer experience and become one organisation, not a collection of departments. We expect high standards of others; we must deliver them ourselves. We need to be more confident and not be on the back foot all the time, and he urged Council members to respect each other. He gave a small example of how empowering staff to get on with the job works – for years, the quality of the coffee in the member’s room had been criticised; he asked the staff to resolve this issue and within a few days a new coffee machine has been sourced at no cost to the College.

Unfortunately, he felt that our IT system would need to be thoroughly updated – it is only barely adequate to the job. Although it is marginally fit for purpose, it is not capable of providing the support we need to take the College forward towards being a best practice regulator. There would be cost implications. He hoped that Council members would be ‘critical friends’ and acknowledge the fact that the motives of staff are honourable and there are no conspiracies within the RCVS. He said that they would get things wrong from time to time, and asked for our tolerance.

I have to say that Mr Stace cuts a most impressive figure – most of what he said was music to my ears. There seems a genuine desire in Council to give him 100 per cent support in getting on with the job. Mr Stace was thanked with a second round of applause (even rarer than the first!).

The Budget
Some good news here: there are no proposed retention fee increases for the next year. Other RCVS fees will increase by roughly 4%. The current growth in membership of the College is providing sufficient increase in retention fee income to cover inflation and other costs. The actual reserve is currently £8,113,958 (total including property £10,958,118). In short the College is in an extremely healthy financial state at present and, as far as can be ascertained, should remain so without a retention fee increase.

Mr Partridge suggested that it was time to look at the reserves again. They were, he said, extremely high given the secure nature of the College’s income stream. Mrs Hill said that we had asked for this to be reviewed in the past and always got the same answer – our auditors invariably supported the current policy. Mr Partridge replied ‘ask the same people, get the same answer!’ He pointed out that the GMC had a different (and much lower) reserve figure. I raised the issue that the value of the work done to the basement was not shown as an addition to the capital value of Belgravia House in the reserves. I felt that this might give the impression that the money had all been lost rather than invested in added value to Belgravia House.

The Veterinary Practice Registration fee will be reduced to £34 from £40.

I made the point that we need to make sure that these good news stories are given some publicity. Council has rightly taken a lot of stick over the ‘overspends’ and we have apologised – but we also need to get the positive messages across. The retention fee has been frozen for four out of the last five years and yet revenues remain healthy. To be fair to the RCVS, I find it hard to think of any other body that has been able to freeze its fees so consistently over such an extended period.

There has been a slight reduction in staff levels at the RCVs from 67 to 66.

Ownership of Belgravia House
Some may recall that I raised this issue at the March meeting. It is not an entirely academic issue, since effectively charter activities were being charged a ‘notional’ rent by the College for use of the building. This was part of the exercise to try and separate charter funding from statutory funding. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view), as I suspected the College’s property – and hence the funding to purchase Belgravia House – was derived from voluntary contributions made by members between 1883 and 1884, before there was any statutory income. It could therefore be cogently argued that the charter body should not be paying even a notional rent to the statutory function, as effectively the charter body funded the initial purchase. Legal advice is that the RCVS should take a holistic approach to its expenditure and not overly try to separate out every item.

For the avoidance of doubt it does seem that presently the charter activities of the RCVS now subsidise the statutory fee income, albeit very slightly. Peter Jinman suggested that this should be further reviewed so that ownership of the College properties could be clearly pinned down – against the eventuality that at some point in the future the functions of the College might be split. This was a point of view with which I was inclined to agree; however, the registrar pointed out that this would cost a small fortune in legal fees. In the end it was decided to continue to take a broad church approach.

Council members' loss of earnings are to be frozen this year (£310 per day) and will be further reviewed once the LRO is fully in force.

Governance Review Group
The GRG was still mithering on about the enforcement of the code of conduct for Council members. Despite very clear legal advice that we have no power whatsoever to remove Council members from office, the GRG still persist in the opposite view. This issue seems to come back to every Council meeting and is a classic example of turning a mole hill into a mountain. The correct people to take action against an appointed member are those who appoint and, in the case of elected members it is the voters. It does not need to be made more complex than that.

The GRG noted disappointment that the Planning and Resources Committee had reappointed the College auditors again (after 10 years) and correctly, in my view, suggested that the job should be re-tendered.

The GRG agreed and welcomed the appointment of a Risk and Audit Committee but were unsurprisingly disappointed with the proposal to abolish the GRG (it seems being disappointed is their usual frame of mind) – but they do have a good point here in that the College’s governance should be subject to external review and by its nature the R & A C cannot be entirely external.

Council and Committees
This was potentially the most controversial issue to be put forward for decision. Basically, an ‘executive committee’ is to be implemented called ‘The Board’ consisting of the Officers, chairmen of the standing committees and the CEO & Registrar. This Board will replace the PRC and meet around six times per year. The terms of reference will include those of both the current PRC and Officers meetings. It is proposed that a small independent committee is set up separate to the Board to determine Council members’ loss of earnings allowances and expenses.

The concept of having a Board is generally accepted by Council members, having been proposed by both the PP+2 WP and the Council Members Practitioners’ Group. What is more controversial is how the chairmen are to be appointed. The President assured Council from the Chair that these were still open issues, that all members would be consulted and that it might be necessary to hold a special council to reach a final consensus. The treasurer pointed out that a special council would cost in the region of £25K (not including support work by staff) – so Council should think carefully about whether this is justified or not.

I asked for reassurance that members on the statutory committees, including Mr Elliott and myself, would in future get an opportunity to debate the committee structures (following an oversight in the previous committee round) – the President readily agreed.

Prof May felt that the decisions on the new structure were some of the most important that Council would be making and warranted full consideration.

Bob Partridge said he was particularly concerned about how Chairmen would be selected. At present this was done by nominations, which are effectively the same people as would be sitting on the board. The new system would involve the board effectively reappointing itself. Mrs Hill said that this would not change the current situation; the nominations committee was the P&RC under a different name (I think that is what worries Mr P). She was of the view that we had to trust those appointed to make the right decisions and that ‘not everything can be democratic’.

Prof May made a number of suggestions regarding the wording of the terms of reference.
At the suggestion of the Chair, Council overwhelmingly agreed that we would hold a special additional session in ‘committee’ to hammer out the fine details of the new committee structure.

General Administration Bye-Laws
It is proposed to simplify the bye-laws to make it easier to amend the terms of reference and constitution of Council committees. After a rather confused debate, this was approved in principle to be implemented after the March 2013 Council.

Hire of College Data
This has proved a surprisingly controversial area. Previously, Council decided that it would cease selling its data for commercial use and subsequently that it would cease the supply of data except to the Trust. The BVA and VDS had both written to the College, arguing that they were not ‘commercial’ (I wondered when it became such a crime to be commercial) and asking to have continued access to College data. The BVA claiming that this wis important in the recruitment of new members, and the VDS likewise saying that they needed to be able to readily check registration details (particularly of RVNs).

I moved (seconded by Christine Shield) that the data should, as a temporary measure, be released to the BVA and the VDS until the whole issue can be reviewed. Mrs Nute was strongly in support of allowing the BVA and VDS access to the data, which was in any event a matter of public record being part of the Register. After much discussion, as we weren’t getting anywhere, I withdrew the proposal and agreed to a consensus suggestion by Peter Jinman that the whole thing should be sent back for more detailed consideration.

Appointment of a New Registrar
Mr Gordon Hockey was confirmed as the new Registrar. Gordon has impressed all with his approach to dealing with the situation following the resignation of the previous Registrar. The interregnum has been seamless and the RCVS has continued to move forwards in an almost harmonious way (it's never going to be a smooth ride!) under his leadership.

LRO Selection Committee
A small independent Committee was approved to select members of the PIC and DC in the future under the provisions of the LRO.

At this juncture, a prolonged – and at times irritable – debate took place concerning the eligibility of existing Council members to apply for positions on the new DC / PIC. No member of Council will be able to sit on the newly formed committees – but Mrs Webb argued very strongly that they should like everyone else to be able to apply (resigning from Council only if appointed). She pointed out that if only two of the current members resigned with immediate effect to enable them to seek appointment that the current DC would find it hard to function in the interim. Her opinion was supported by Prof Lee. However Mrs Nute was strongly of the view that Council members were elected / appointed to be Council members first and serving on a statutory committee was not their first priority. She felt changing the rule could give a whiff of self-interest (she made it clear she was not applying that to any individual but to the perception it might create).

After prolonged debate Council voted by an overwhelming majority that existing members should be able to apply and only resign from Council if appointed. This should help in securing continuity within the committees. It is to be stressed that after the interim three year period, no member of Council will be sitting on the DC or PIC.

Advisory Committee Report
Mrs Tapsfield-Wright was ill and the report was moved by Mr Catlow.

Removal of Microchips - The PIC had referred this matter to the Advisory committee for further consideration. The upshot was that the AC confirmed that ‘a microchip MUST only be removed where this can be clinically justified’.

Microchips – client confidentiality - This issue arose because there is a difference between the view taken by the College and the VDS. The College has previously advised that when an animal is scanned and proves to have a microchip that a VS can breach client confidentiality and report finding the chip to the original owner of the animal (i.e. when the current keeper of the animal is not its original owner). The VDS maintain that data protection legislation precludes VS from releasing client details without consent. As yet the issue has not been resolved and independent advice from the information commissioner is to be sought.

Renal transplant surgery - It was reported that the current guidelines had been in place for some ten years and so far no one had applied for permission to perform a renal transplant. It had been suggested that the guidelines could be reviewed. However it was concluded that the current guidelines were clearly robust and that there was no point in wasting RCVS resources on a further review. Col Neil Smith objected to this – he pointed out that Council had instructed the Advisory Committee to look at the whole issue again. It was potentially a serious animal welfare issue. On a show of hands 10 to 8 the matter was sent back to the advisory to look at again.

Veterinary Nursing Council
The main thing here was a proposal to seek a ‘hand out’ Parliamentary Bill to protect the title RVN and pursue further regulation of VNs through that route and by obtaining a charter.

Mr Partridge expressed concern at the poor levels of CPD currently being undertaken by RVNs – less than 1/3 doing the required 15 hours per annum

Education, Policy and Specialisation Committee
Chris Tufnell presented the report for the first time as Chairman. He said he was excited by his new role. Largely the work of the committee had been establishing new WPs.

Advanced Practitioner Working Party - Prof Stephen May is to chair a WP to bring forward form proposals on how this should be implemented.

Review of Day One Competences - David Catlow had been appointed Chair of the WP to review Day One competences. He had proposed an initial consultation using the existing BVA channels and that this review should be a ‘light touch review’ although the chairman assured Council that it would be robust.  This concerned me greatly. Far from being a ‘light touch’ review, I believe that we need a root and branch reform, based on determining what we need new graduates to be able to do in the next decade. It is ten years since the day ones have been established. I informed Council that members in the field were concerned about the practical skills of new graduates – whilst acknowledging the enormous strides forward that the Schools had taken since the Day Ones were first established.

I got precious little support from the floor (with the exception of Bob Partridge). Dr Johnson held the view that new graduates had never had better practical skills and didn’t want the minutes to reflect any inference that it was otherwise. However both Mr Catlow and Mr Tufnell assured me that the review would certainly be robust.

Mr Partridge questioned why the BVA were being used as the main source of information for the initial phase of the review – if this was important then surely it was worth the College investing in the research and consultation. He urged that the review should not take place unless we were completely committed to it.

Mr Catlow thanked all for their input and assured Council that the review would be thorough and all opinions given an airing.

Mrs Nute asked if anyone had noted the irony of the College refusing the BVA data and then relying on them for the Day One review – have to say this was the best one liner of the meeting!

Planning and Resources Committee
Most of this is covered elsewhere. The 2012 Council Election was discussed – following several incidents where duplicate election papers had been sent out. It had been decided to stick with Electoral Reform Services in 2013 but to use an entirely separate mailing to reduce the chances of problems at the mailing service. A tender exercise would be held for 2014. There had been no challenge to the 2012 despite the errors in the mailing.

Preliminary Investigation Committee
Continues to work its way through a steady stream (not increasing) of complaints. The full committee had considered 43 since the last Council meeting. The Chairman had audited 35% of complaints closed at assessment and 33% of cases closed at examination. Case examiners had dealt with 126 complaint files in the relevant period

Three new cases had been referred to the DC.

The PIC had itself made a complaint against a dentist to the GDC. This followed an incident in which the dentist had been aggressive and threatening to veterinary staff, resulting in the dentist being escorted from veterinary premises by police. The GDC found that the behaviour of the dentist in being physically aggressive to veterinary staff and the police rendered her fitness to practise impaired by reason of misconduct. The GDC investigation committee issued a written warning that has been published (for six months) in the GDC register.

The Disciplinary Committee
Only three cases had been heard:

Mr Cartmell - Facing seven heads of charge (and admitting none) the respondent had resigned from the College and offered undertakings not to apply for readmission and not to act as an expert witness. In view of this the DC had deemed it in the public interest to adjourn the case.

Mr Lonsdale - Was removed in March 2004. Successfully applied for readmission having addressed his alcoholism and assuring the DC that he would in future work only in multi-handed practice.

Dr Ohene – Gyan - Was removed from the Register following conviction on four charges of offences of causing unnecessary cruelty to three dogs and a cat at Reading Magistrates Court. Mr Gyan had served a prison sentence for these offences.

The DC had just completed two days’ training.

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MRCVSonline would like to thank Richard Stephenson for making his notes available to publish online.