Alison Levitt QC’s Independent Review report published

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (“RICS”) today published in full the report prepared by Alison Levitt QC and Chris Foulkes following her Independent Review in respect of issues raised in 2018 and 2019 following the commissioning by the RICS audit committee of an internal Treasury Management audit.

In an online press briefing also attended by over 3,000 members and staff of the Institution,  Alison Levitt QC summarised her findings and recommendations.

The 467-page report concludes that four non-Executive Board members, who raised legitimate concerns that the audit had been suppressed, were wrongly dismissed from the Management Board and that sound governance principles were not followed.

The BDO audit, which raised serious concerns about Treasury Management controls, was received by the Chief Operating Officer in December 2018, but not shared with the Management board until seven months later.

The report concludes that the origins of what went wrong lay in the governance structure of RICS, and there is a real risk that if it is not dealt with, something similar could happen again.

The report also makes a number of recommendations, the principal one being that a wide-ranging review of purpose, governance and strategy, should be commissioned. RICS has accepted all the findings and recommendations in full.

The link to the report can be found here.