Making IOSH fit for the future

We've reviewed some areas of our governance to make sure we are meeting the needs of our growing and diverse membership. By doing this, we can support an evolving occupational safety and health profession and open up more opportunities for all members to get involved.

Networks

We’ve moved to a community-based approach for building networks and volunteering.

As part of this change, we are:

making it easier to get involved in volunteering and encourage diverse participation
increasing member engagement and more equal access to benefits for members all over the world
creating a structure that makes it easier for all members to join communities based on their interests, rather than physical location.

Why are we doing this?

It’s important there is the chance for members to influence our thinking and direction and help develop each other's knowledge. Our ambition is to make it easier for all members to get involved in volunteering activities and find it a rewarding experience.

We wanted to make changes that our volunteers have been asking for. These include:

more virtual services
better communication
simpler administration and governance.

What do these changes mean?

We’re starting to turn what used to be known as our networks into communities. As a result:

branches and groups are now called communities (for example, Bristol and West Community, Aviation and Aerospace Community)
all districts and sections have been dissolved
we’ve started to update the naming conventions. For example, on the IOSH website and LinkedIn accounts (we’ll complete this by the end of June 2025).

Council and Presidential team

We are:

reducing the size of Council to 12 members
changing the selection process for Council from an election to an appointment process
making the eligibility criteria the same for Vice-President and President-Elect
making Immediate Past President an honorary role.

Why make these changes?

We believe there’s a wide range of benefits.

We believe reducing the size of Council can improve the quality and speed of decision-making.

As groups get larger, it becomes increasingly difficult to schedule meetings with full attendance. It's also easy for some voices to remain quiet or get overlooked.

The benefits of a smaller committee can include shorter and more focused discussions, leading to fast, effective decision-making.

It's easier to get everyone together and hear each person's voice. Relationships can develop quickly. Individual roles quickly become well defined and understood in the context of the overall goals of the group.

Our plan includes ways to manage workload. There's the option of co-opting up to six people on to Council if there's a specific skills gap or need. The Presidential team will still sit on Council (in an ex-officio capacity).

We want to make all appointment processes fair, balanced and representative of the membership. They need to be transparent at all stages.

Moving from an election to an appointment process is a chance to do this. At the moment, only around six per cent of eligible members vote in our elections. This is not a fair representation of the membership. We've seen high-quality candidates being consistently overlooked.

Our Nominations Committee - a sub-committee of Council - has developed a robust and transparent recruitment process for Council, Board of Trustees and Presidential team. We want to make sure the process focuses on finding the best candidates with the skills and competencies required.

Responsibility for administering the appointment process is delegated to the Nominations Committee by Council.

We want to make sure the way we recruit to our volunteering roles is accessible and encourages a diverse group of candidates. Moving to an appointment process for all networks, Council, Board of Trustees and Presidential team, will make it easier for members to get involved.

Making the role of Immediate Past President an honorary one is another way of doing this. The Immediate Past President has already given two years in their presidential roles. This is a big time and resource commitment that not everyone is able to consider. By reducing the third year to an honorary role, it's hoped that more people will be encouraged to apply.

We still expect the Immediate Past President to share knowledge and support when needed.

We believe that having the same eligibility criteria for Vice-President and President-Elect:

ensures the quality of all members of the Presidential team, and
expands the candidate pool and makes it more diverse.

What happens next?

Council will reduce from 36 to 24 members this year as existing members terms come to an end. It will operate using approved standing orders. The Presidential team is at full capacity, in line with the changes.

How did we consult with members?

We conducted a review of our member networks. Working with members and volunteers we reviewed the current structure. We wanted to find out what works well for our members in the existing set-up.

We also considered what needs to change so our networks can best support occupational safety and health professionals, both now and in the future. We held focus groups with a range of members from different grades, backgrounds and experience to hear their views. We also gave all members the chance to answer a survey.

The changes we are making to Council and the Presidential team came from Council’s own review of how they work. Stuart Hughes, during his year as President, led a full review looking at how to make Council as effective and responsive to our membership as possible.

Council ran a six-week member consultation that included drop-in sessions and a member survey. There was also the chance to provide feedback using an online form. We promoted this on our website, social media channels and email newsletters to reach as many members as possible.

The survey results were supportive of the proposed changes to Council and the Presidential team.

Approval process

Members

We needed to update the Byelaws in our Royal Charter to make all these changes.

This required approval through two special resolutions at our annual general meeting (AGM) in November 2024.

Both special resolutions received strong support from voting members. They were approved with more than 90 per cent of the vote, well above the 75 per cent needed.

The special resolutions were drafted after separate reviews of our Council and our networks. Both reviews included opportunities for input for members across all different grades.

Privy Council

We submitted a formal application to the Privy Council asking for their approval to amend our byelaws. At their meeting on 14 February 2025, the Privy Council formally approved the changes. This allows us to begin implementing the changes.

Board of Trustees

Our Board of Trustees formally approved the transition from networks to communities in May 2025.