How did this week go?
I may as well kick things off with something that landed on my desk this week. This is exactly the sort of stuff that I was talking about in my first post.
This is something that I’ve now reported.
There’s a firm in the north of England which appears to be regulated by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
One of their employees, who also seems to be a director, has appeared in two separate court bundles I’ve received over the past couple of weeks.
Both of these bundles included a CV for this individual.
It did not take long to spot that something wasn’t right.
The CV
There were two obvious issues.
The first was that this individual claimed to be a Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner. That is a protected designation, and it’s very easy to check.
So I did exactly that. I picked up the phone and called the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH).
They confirmed, very quickly and in no uncertain terms, that this individual is not a Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner. They are a “member”, but they are not Chartered. They are not permitted to use the title Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner.
That is not a grey area. It’s a statement that is simply not true.
The second issue sat under a section of the CV titled “Certifications”. Under this section this individual described themselves as a “RICS Member”.
Again, this is not difficult to verify. I checked the RICS directory and could not find them listed as a member. From what I can see, they are not a qualified member of RICS. At best, they may be a student member or something like that.
Either way, describing themselves as a “RICS Member” in that context is, at best, misleading. This is precisely what the various RICS Practice Alerts were trying to prevent.
Reporting it
I sent a copy of the CV to both RICS and CIEH at the same time.
Credit where it’s due. CIEH responded almost immediately with a clear email setting out the next steps. I have since replied, pointing them to the specific part of their code of ethics that has been breached.
That is clause 5.4.2, which states that members shall:
“Not present themselves as having a qualification, grade of membership, designation or experience that they do not.”
It is difficult to see how this situation could fall outside of that. This individual has made not one, but two misleading statements about their qualifications.
As for RICS, I have not heard anything back yet beyond an automated response. To be fair, the email did manage expectations. It explained that they are currently experiencing a high volume of enquiries and aim to review submissions within 35 working days.
So we shall see.
I will keep you posted and let you know if anything actually happens.