Page 2 - Simon Hardwick News Today

It's all going down (the rabbit hole) in Colchester!

Five members of the RICS Governing Council (GC) are absorbing a 400-page report by Alison Levitt QC on the circumstances surrounding the sacking of four members of the institution’s management board in November 2019. This steering group will issue directions to the ruling body’s other 21 members.

Shutterstock It was on 13 December last year that the first details of a scandal that has since engulfed the RICS began to surface. The Sunday Times revealed that a financial report into the RICS’s treasury management processes had not been shared beyond its audit committee. After months of wrangling with the RICS management board, four non-executive directors, who had learnt of the existence of the report in early 2019, obtained a copy. The report, by accountant BDO, turned out to be damning...

By Tom Lowe2021-02-01T06:00:00+00:00 Kathleen Fontana says body needs to ‘take stock’ following fallout over suppressed BDO report The backlash against the RICS over its handling of a damning report into its financial governance prompted the organisation to launch a review of its future purpose, its president has admitted. The 152-year-old organisation has been rocked after news emerged last month that four non-executive directors were fired in November 2019 – with their departure kept ...

By Tom Lowe2021-01-28T06:00:00+00:00 Non-execs say group rejected their request for a public joint statement The four fired directors at the centre of a row that has shaken the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) have hit back at the organisation’s claims they asked for their dismissal to be kept under wraps. Amarjit Atkar, Bruce McAra, Simon Hardwick and Steve Williams had their contracts terminated in November 2019 after they raised concerns about the handling of a report into...

Independent inquiry into governance scandal launched last week

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is launching an independent review into a governance scandal after its initial refusal to do so prompted a backlash from members.The professional body

By Tom Lowe2021-01-22T13:33:00+00:00 U-turn follows governing council vote last night The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has said it will now set up an independent review into a scandal which erupted last week over allegations that a report criticising the group’s governance had been suppressed. Last night’s U-turn follows a vote by the group’s governing council which voted to hold an independent inquiry into the affair two weeks after the RICS said one wasn’t necessa...

The four directors fired from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) broke their silence this weekend as the organisation appeared to do a U-turn on its response to the scandal.Amarjit

Four directors were fired after trying to raise alarm over report into body’s treasury management processes