Not My College ?

  In April the results of the 2024 RCVS Council were announced. Three candidates were elected, Zara Kennedy, Sinéad Bennett and David Barrett. Two of the candidates ( Sinéad Bennett and David Barrett)  made it clear in their manifestoes that they were opposed to an appointed Council. Looking at the manifestoes of all 14 candidates, it appears that 7 were openly opposed to an appointments system, some vehemently. The only candidate directly associated with the proposal, ex-President Kate Richards, was defeated. Scroll forward six weeks to the 10th of June and the first day of the RCVS consultation on Governance. What do we find ? An acceptance of the membership's near total rejection of an appointed Council ? Far from it. Instead we have page upon page of biased 'recommendations' and a tone deaf video by an ex-President  here  which is billed as 'An Introduction to our Good Governance Consultation.'  In reality it's a one-sided propaganda piece in which we'...

Its almost March, the snowdrops are out, and with the spring comes the annual RCVS begging letter.  When many of the membership are struggling to cope with record costs-of-living, a demand for payment is never welcome, particularly when it has increased by 6%. Perhaps if the College hadn't splurged £20 million on their new headquarters, in the process emptying the contingency fund* which was,  ' built up over a number of years for just such an eventuality,'   or so we're told, the increase might have been absorbed. With more of the profession practicing part-time, shouldn't we be looking at reducing the fees for those working shorter hours ? It would certainly be a more equitable way of doing things but I'm not holding my breath. Empires are being built even as we speak and empires need money ... i n this case, yours (So where are they putting the throne room?). .   *C on·tin·gency fund  [contingency fund]  noun;  a reserve of money set aside to cove...

I sometimes think the only way the College survives is through the voluntary, willed disinterest of the membership. Most people actively avoid reading their relentlessly irrelevant newsletters or emails let alone the heavier stuff, which is probably just as well.  A good example of something that missed processing is the  RCVS Standards and Guidance for the Accreditation of Veterinary Degree Programmes 2023.   When hardly a week goes by without some reference, somewhere, in some RCVS communication, about mitigating ‘workforce issues,’ one can only wonder at a process that managed to produce 40 pages of ‘guidance’ for universities with hardly a mention of   improving the criteria for entry into the undergraduate degree course. No practical steps towards selection on the basis of proven vocation and not just exam results, nor of candidate maturity, nor of moving towards post graduate entry, nor of improving the gender balance, nor indeed of anything that might at the e...