Annual Report 2009 - Chartered Institute of Arbitrators

Annual Report 2009the continuing concerns about member attrition in England,but gave few insights as to strategies to reverse the trend.The Education and Training team, under Anita Phillips, ran athird more courses than in 2008: with an increase in grossincome of 70 per cent compared with 2004. As part of theInstitute’s policy of improving the rigour both of the syllabusof our Pathways progressions and of the way in which theyare taught, the Institute’s Education and MembershipCommittee laid down guidelines and reviewed the list offaculty involved in CIArb courses.Regrettably, the new stipulations caused upset in somequarters and the implementation of them took longer than wasintended. I can only defend the committee’s view that rigourin the appointment of tutors is central to the maintenance ofproper standards in qualifications, and as I write, I believethe final anomalies have now been resolved. Otherdevelopments included introducing a consistent formatacross all education and training documents; improvingregistration forms, joining instructions and course folders;introducing course fee sheets, course information sheetsand tutor instructions; updating candidate and faculty regulations;introducing statistical analysis and, very importantly, the rollout of the Recognised Course Provider scheme.We looked carefully at what attracts and retains membersglobally, informed by the electronic member survey that manyof you completed over the spring. For almost all of you, it isthe benchmark qualifications of the Institute that are by farthe most valuable aspect of membership. It is worthemphasising, therefore, that use of the Institute’s postnominalletters, eg FCIArb, are dependent on the memberbeing in good standing with the Institute, which includespayment of the annual subscription fee. In one case this yearI had to write to a senior arbitrator who was claiming falselyto be a member. We must all of us ensure that the value ofyour hard-won qualifications are not undermined by theunscrupulous use of them by those who have never had, orhave given up, the right to use them. Please let theMembership team know if you have any such suspicions.We made significant strides in developing our member benefitsstrategy, offering even greater value for money. Most membersin the UK at least have the opportunity to recover the full costof their subscription fees by using our new CIArb Advantagescheme which offers real savings on a wide range of productsand services – see the website for details. I do hope all theUK branches in particular are marketing these improvedbenefits vigorously to current and prospective members.Those outside the UK should also find them useful whenvisiting Britain.For those of you who are sole practitioners or in small practices,do look at the very competitive rates we have negotiated forour Professional Indemnity insurance scheme, with globalcoverage, underwritten by QBE and eligible to all membersworldwide. We are constantly on the lookout for other benefitswe might be able to offer with a global reach and again wouldwelcome any suggestions from you, the members. It wasencouraging that, notwithstanding some technical issues withwebsite logins towards the end of the year, letters of complaintwere statistically insignificant – less than 1 per cent of enquiries.Lest we become complacent, I must emphasise that wewant to know whenever you think we are not performing aswell as we should – and we will investigate any specificcomplaints thoroughly.While the Northumbria (England) Branch sadly closed, andits members transferred to the North East Branch, the threenew branches forecast in 2007 (Caribbean, Mauritius andIndia) all proved to be robust and active. I had the pleasureof attending the inaugural ceremonies of the Mauritius andIndia Branches in November. Both were major occasions,with the Mauritian Attorney General presiding in Port Louis,and the Minister of Justice in Delhi: my congratulations toBen Seesaram and Lalit Bahsin, their respective chairmen.It is heartening to see the enthusiasm and the local influencewhich these new branches have so quickly demonstrated. Ialso had several discussions with Mrs Chan Lai Fung, thePermanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice in Singapore,regarding the establishment of the Singapore Branch, whoseinauguration I attended in January 2010. More of that nextyear, but congratulations too, to Christopher Lau, the newSingapore Chairman.I noted in 2008 that we were laying the ground to lift thestanding of the Institute as the representative body of disputeresolvers worldwide, partly through the revitalisation of the‘Learned Society’. In terms of professional development, theInstitute’s partnership with the Maughan Library providesaccess to one of the most comprehensive legal and disputeresolution libraries in the world for all members passing throughLondon. It has not been as widely used as we hoped – doplease ask us for a pass the next time you are passingthrough, and go and have a look.Our small research team produced an outstanding first fullyear of activity. Our support to Lord Justice Jackson,recognised in both his Preliminary and Final Report on theCosts of Civil Litigation, the work of a total of five interns inour new internship programme, from countries as diverse asColombia, Germany, Iran, China and the USA, was one ofseveral initiatives.CIArb Annual Report 2009: Reports from the Boards, Committees and Executive – ExecutivePage 13