BCS individual and organisational members apply technology, solve business problems, create new business opportunities and support professional development. Continuing professional development is particularly important as emerging technologies with new implementation methods offer new possibilities.
This month, let me introduce to you Ian Alderton CITP FBCS, the CIO and Director of the Technology Division at the Financial conduct authority, and one of the BCS organisational members.
‘The work of the Financial Conduct Authority impacts every person in the UK. We are the conduct regulator for around 51,000 financial services firms and financial markets. We protect consumers, protect financial markets, and promote competition. Every consumer of banking, credit, savings, pensions, trading, and loans are impacted by the work we do. We depend upon Technology to enable digital regulation.
But we can’t do this without our people. It’s an overused phrase but it’s true. People are our most valuable asset.
How we invest in our people, support their development, expand, and share their knowledge and continuously improve and develop our capability is key to our success. The FCA has a longstanding relationship with BCS in support of this.
We have introduced a digital skills framework that is founded upon SFIAplus. The use of this framework and the RoleModelplus platform, provided by BCS, has enabled us to benchmark our skills, assess our gaps and measure our capability development. We are exploring additional skills frameworks across our regulatory functions that could be incorporated. As a large and active user of the framework and platform we’ve also been able to input to the future development and roadmap for RoleModelplus. We have built internal capabilities to analyse and automate the dashboard of the digital skills framework. We are sharing this with BCS to see how this can be included in future development.
We also support and champion BCS membership. For many years individuals could become BCS members and gain professional recognition and status. When we moved from individual membership to an organisational membership, we saw a step change increase in the adoption of membership. This made joining smoother and quicker. It enabled our people to gain membership benefits sooner. We can now see where this is being utilised and where we need to champion this further. We’ve incentivised and celebrated RITTech, Chartered IT Professional, and Fellowship status and as such seen a greater uptake also.
The FCA has recently been awarded Gold partner status by BCS in recognition of our dedication to promoting standards and professional pathways. This is a powerful way for us to attract other professionals and those seeking to develop and thrive here. This is opening opportunities for us to increase our branding and presence in the technology market.’
For you
Be part of something bigger, join BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.
Secondly, let me introduce you to Alastair Revell, Chair of the BCS Community Board - that looks after the BCS Community, the Institute’s membership, and now its engagement with employers who are organisational members. The board now provides unified governance around connecting our members to each other and employers, bringing greater strategic focus to growing our membership, building a vibrant community to sustain and retain them, and engaging with employers to stimulate demand for both individual and organisational membership.
The Board is supported by six governance bodies
With Alastair’s leadership, BCS is intent on becoming the career partner for everybody working in any digital technology from the start of their career to retirement. Our strategy goal is to inspire people to join the profession, help them progress and collectively influence decision-makers in fulfilling our mission of making IT good for society.
The Board’s traditional role in maintaining and developing the BCS Community, which comprises more than one hundred groups around the world, is vital to growing and sustaining the Institute’s membership. Our thousand plus volunteers’ world-wide power our domestic branches, international sections, specialist groups and student chapters that provide a wide variety of high quality physical and digital opportunities for IT professionals to meet, learn and support one another.
The Board’s expanded remit to look after the membership of not just individuals, but organisations too, unleashes considerable synergy. Community Board seeks to stimulate demand for ethical IT professionals by encouraging employers to recognise their value in meeting growing public demand for greater corporate responsibility and increased accountability around all aspects of digital technology.
An important new role for the Board is to explore and promote ways that employers can join us in making IT good for society and connecting them with competent and ethical professionals to help them demonstrate the high standards they work to and which the public are starting to recognise as important in light of recent scandals that have affected them.
As Alastair says: 'The work of the Community Board is challenging but very rewarding. I am honoured to support outstanding volunteers and staff who work tirelessly together to deliver on our goals. The amount of work they undertake is quite awe-inspiring. It is their work that makes BCS a force to be reckoned with.'
Technology leaders like Ian Alderson are transforming how we live and work. With Alastair Revell’s leadership, the BCS Community Board supports members around the world to achieve more together and to learn from each other in a world where design thinking, robotics and machine learning are changing every role and business.
Keep sharing your experiences with BCS by getting in touch with jenna.griffin@bcs.uk.
