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'...

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...