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The Road to Chartered
“Royal Charters are granted by the Sovereign on the advice of the Privy Council …. new Charters are normally reserved for bodies that work in the public interest (such as professional institutions and charities) and which can demonstrate pre-eminence, stability and permanence in their particular field.”
Privy Council, 2007
In January 2007 the APM Board resolved to embark on a programme for the association to achieve Chartered Status: to become chartered as an organisation and to operate a register of Chartered practitioners.
In November 2007 at the APM Annual General Meeting, members voted unanimously to approve the motion to petition for a charter and to create a register of practitioners. With 50 letters of support from government departments, other leading professional bodies and major corporate organisations our preliminary application was made to the Privy Council in April 2008. This demonstrated how APM fulfils the guidance criteria issued by the Privy Council Office:
(a) the institution concerned should comprise members of a unique profession, and should have as members most of the eligible field for membership, without significant overlap with other bodies;
(b) members of the institution should normally be qualified to at least first degree level in a relevant discipline;
(c) the institution should be financially sound and able to demonstrate a track record of achievement over a number of years;
(d) incorporation by charter is a form of government regulation as future amendments to the charter and by-laws of the body require Privy Council (ie Government) approval. There therefore needs to be a convincing case that it would be in the public interest to regulate the body in this way;
(e) the institution is normally expected to be of substantial size (5,000 members or more).
The campaign gains momentum
In October 2008, our formal application was submitted to the Privy Council and duly gazetted in line with the recognised application process. No objections to the application were received during the gazetting process.
Our campaign has created huge momentum for increasing professional standards in project management amongst practitioners in private and public sector organisations alike. With the highest level of support ever achieved for a chartered application in recent history, we set ourselves extremely ambitious planning targets for achieving chartered status, even though we knew the decision-making process was outside our direct control. We recognise that progress in the later stages has been slower than we had planned.
Achieving chartered status remains a top priority
We continue to put every effort into ensuring a successful outcome from our Royal Charter application. To achieve this we are engaging directly with the decision-makers in government, whilst maintaining our “dignified silence” in public.
To emphasise our unswerving commitment to the programme and to the increasingly well-supported requirement for a universal professional standard for project management, however, we intend to launch our pilot of the APM Project Professional standard in April 2010.
We will also continue to maintain the momentum behind our strategic objective of creating a recognised and valued profession through increasing awareness and achievement of APM’s 5 Dimensions of Professionalism amongst those organisations and individuals committed to improving project management capability.
Feedback and comments
As the programme progresses, we will be building a bank of Frequently Asked Questions. If you have any questions about the chartered programme – please email: chartered@apm.org.uk