Council’s fourth meeting of the sessional year took place by videoconference on Thursday 17 June. This meeting was a chance for us to look back at the past year and forward to the next.
Council’s fourth meeting of the sessional year took place by videoconference on Thursday 17 June. This meeting was a chance for us to look back at the past year and forward to the next.
We began the meeting with tributes to Council member Mahidhara Davangere, who passed away in May. Mahidhara was a selfless volunteer and an engaging colleague with an irrepressible passion for modernising the profession. He will be deeply missed.
Following our discussion on the Member Propositions at our March meeting, we received an update on the further work that had been undertaken to begin delivering better value for our members. As part of this conversation, we agreed a series of recommendations on the future of the IFoA’s events offering, which aim to maximise both accessibility and value for money for our members (see more about this on facing page). On a related theme, Council agreed that there would be no increase in subscription fees for members for the coming subscription year (see page 7).
We also received an update from the IFoA’s Regulatory Steering Group on its important work in producing the IFoA’s response to the recent government white paper on reform of audit and corporate governance. Council recognises that the outcome of the government’s proposals are of critical importance to the actuarial profession, and we have provided a steer on the final wording of the IFoA’s response. We will keep members updated on developments in this area.
In line with Council’s oversight and governance responsibilities, we received updates from the IFoA’s chief executive and the chair of the Management Board on recent activity. We agreed a small number of changes to the composition of the Management Board, which are intended to ensure the good flow of information between Council, the Board, and the Board’s two newly established committees, which will be key to the successful implementation of our updated strategy. We also discussed the in-progress work towards developing the IFoA’s new risk framework, which will help us deliver the key objectives in the strategy.
Additionally, as part of our governance responsibilities, Council undertook its annual review of its performance for the year and received a report from the Management Board on the outcome of its annual review. We discussed the ways that Council could continue to improve its efficiency and effectiveness in the coming year, taking what we have learned from the past year as a fully ‘virtual’ body and considering how we (and the IFoA as a whole) can retain the best aspects of that model once COVID-19 restrictions begin to lift.
Finally, we said thank you to those members of Council who were to step down at the Annual General Meeting: Laura Andrikopoulos, Kelvin Chamunorwa, Charles Cowling, Marian Elliott, Richard Galbraith, Keith Jennings, John Taylor and James Tufts. Their contributions to and hard work on Council are greatly appreciated.
Council’s next meeting will take place on 15 September 2021. The minutes of our meetings are available at bit.ly/IFoA_Council and you can contact us at [email protected]
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