Update from our Interim CEO
Annual report 2023
Alan Vallance left the position of Chief Executive in December 2023 to take up the equivalent role at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. In light of these changes, Gill White, Chief Customer Officer, assumed the role of Acting Chief Executive Officer until Matthew’s arrival. Here she provides a summary of the year.
In our last Annual Report, we set out the importance of returning the CII to an operating surplus. This would enable us to rebuild our reserves, fix our IT systems issues, and deliver against our clear vision for the organisation over coming years.
This report informs our members, partners, stakeholders and the public of our progress against these priorities, with sections on each theme contained in our Strategic Plan. We detail the actions and performance against the KPIs established last year and how we’ve achieved those results.
The Institute weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, but the resulting reduction in income has taken some time to recover. During the pandemic, the Institute remained fully open for business, avoided having to make use of the UK Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, made significant investments in new IT systems, and took steps to make more secure our obligations to the historic defined benefit staff pension fund. These actions involved significant financial outgoings which, combined with reduced income, meant that by 2022 we had entered a period of annual operating deficits.
Driven by growth
Financially, the results for 2023 were therefore very encouraging with the Institute returning an operating surplus for the first time
since the pandemic.
This performance was driven by growth in enrolments and careful management of costs, offset somewhat by higher IT spend than last year. It indicates that we are on the right path to a secure future for the Institute. Encouragingly, qualification enrolments and membership renewals continued their upward trajectory into the second quarter of 2024.
Alongside strong performance in the UK, we have seen growth in the CII’s international sphere, perhaps most notably in the Middle East, where regulators are keen to build professionalism and competency in the insurance profession.
However, there is still work to be done to return the CII to its pre-pandemic operational and financial footing. That will include continuing investment in our IT infrastructure over the next 24 months to improve our customer experience across the board. The modernisation of our systems has been a major focus over the last few years, and it has not been straightforward. That being said, we have confidence in the actions we are taking, as evidenced by the successful roll-out of our new Customer Relationship Management system in March 2023. This, along with
improved operational focus, led to a significant enhancement in our service delivery, with correspondingly better customer service satisfaction outcomes.
From a governance point of view, we have made good progress in the last year. We have largely addressed the complex governance issues that had put strain on the relationship between CII and PFS. We have seen that position stabilise in recent months, not least through the appointment of a new PFS Board. At the same time, we have been working to establish improved governance frameworks to reduce the likelihood of similar issues arising in future.
A year of progress
As a strong and positive signal of the progress made, the CII and PFS Boards agreed to reduce the cash inter-company debt held by the CII on behalf of the PFS by the sum of £2.5m.
These actions have enabled us to focus on the operational mechanics of the Group much more on a business-as-usual basis, with the aim of focusing all our energy on delivering fully for all our members.
Overall then, 2023 has been a year of progress. We delivered against all three of our main goals set out in our Strategic Plan: addressing legacy systems issues; returning the CII entity to a surplus financial
position; and laying strong foundations for the future.
At the same time, we have clarity over the complexities of the organisation’s IT needs going forward and have a plan that will deliver significant benefits by the end of 2025.
We look forward to maintaining our focus on delivering ever-greater benefits for our members and achieving our organisational mission over 2024 and beyond.
On the following pages we discuss progress against each of the strategic themes that the CII communicated as part of its Strategic Plan 2023-2027 announced in April 2023. These themes place a renewed emphasis on professional standards and the value of CII and PFS membership supported by world‑class learning and qualifications. Our update encompasses a summary of the anticipated actions for the year, commentary from our senior managers responsible for each theme’s delivery, and our actual performance against the actions and KPIs previously communicated for 2023.
2023 has been a year of progress. We delivered against all three of our main goals set out in our Strategic Plan:
- Addressing legacy systems issues
- Returning the CII entity to a surplus financial position
- Laying strong foundations
for the future.
