Some members of the RICS have pushed that body into mimicry of big multinational business by wandering off into attempted globalisation.
The full extent of that disastrous trip has been obfuscated by use of reserve funds but, as all good MBAs should know, that route leads to loss of direction and eventual bankruptcy.

The real way forward is to dispose of the expansionist demons and break up the conglomerate into half a dozen new bodies with focused titles such as quantity surveying, building surveying, valuation surveying. The market needs specialists with honed skills, not imitation management consultants.

The core aims of the RICS' charitable body status seem to have been forgotten. The institution is not a vehicle for a civil service-type empire headed by a £250,000-a-year supremo, it is about providing skills and integrity in the process of surveying for the community at large.

Mr Hackett has led the way with his call for an EGM (6 June, page 32) on the subscriptions; but when that increase has been reversed the next action is to dismantle the unwieldy giant and restore its members' identities.

Postscript

Name and address supplied.