Editorial

Towards the SSI - The shape of the future has become a little clearer

by Jon Fairall

One of the most interesting sessions at the Mapping Sciences Institute Conference (MSIA2002, 13-15 May) was a forum held after a day-long meeting of the Spatial Sciences Coalition. The forum was chaired by Graham Baker from Queensland. The SSC, a body that includes representatives of five professional organisations, is charged with developing proposals to extablish a single body to represent the interests of professionals working in the land sciences.

The SSC is made up of the Mapping Sciences Institute, the Institution of Surveyors, the Institution of Engineering and Mining Surveyors, the Australasian Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, and the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Association. During the forum, it was revealed that proposals for a new professional body called the Spatial Science Institute are to be put to members of existing institutions in November. The proposal is that the existing professional bodies would be wound up, and replaced by the SSI. It is also proposed that other, smaller organisations, such as the Institute of Mining Surveyors, will be invited to join in due course.

During the forum, the immediate past ISA president, Mal McCoy, said the SSI would have more than 5000 members, a paid staff of about 12 and a budget of $1-$2 million, mainly made up of annual membership fees, which will be set at $200-$300. Corporate membership will be allowed, but only as a means by which companies can buy bulk membership for their professional staff.

The institute will be organised in special interest groups. Initially, there will be five SIGs, one for the members of each of the existing organisations. However, it is anticipated that new SIGs will be formed as the organisation develops, to cater for the diverse needs of the membership. SIGs for location-based services and R&D have already been mooted.

The SSI proposal is a response to a number of pressures on existing organisations. All face dwindling membership; all are having difficulty attracting new graduates. This is impacting on their budgets and their ability to provide services to members. This is not an immediate problem for the ISA, which can exist for many years by selling its real estate, but it is not sustainable in the long run, and the other organisations are in a much worse position.

In addition, the Action Agenda process made it clear that the division of industry professionals into five disparate bodies has an adverse impact on their ability to influence government policy. Since the SSC was formed, about six months ago, members have been closeted in working groups in which various alternative structures for the new organisation have been thrashed out.

A working group chaired by IEMSA's Trevor Howard tackled legal and governance issues; another, chaired by Denis Puniard from the RSPAA, considered business models. Mal McCoy was in charge of membership services, and Margaret Berenyi from AURISA was responsible for membership development. Malcolm Ryan, from AURISA, headed a working group on accreditation issues. Devising communications strategies was the responsibility of a working group headed by Peter Bowen, from MSIA.

Each working group was composed of five members - one from each organisation. As a result, coalition board members say all the relevant issues have been thoroughly explored and the various options tested. Speakers at the forum said the main task now is selling the proposal to the members of the existing organisations. This will take the form of a take it or leave it referendum, not a competition between alternative models. The issue is now to explain this process to the membership, or at least to that part of it that is not already convinced of the merit of the proposal.

McCoy told the forum that the main opposition to the proposal appears to be in the NSW branch of ISA, and, to a lesser extent, in the NSW branch of IEMSA. According to a poll taken earlier this year, the membership of the other organisations strongly favours the overall concept. Indeed, in some states moves to amalgamate various of the organisations are well advanced.

However, the poll results need to be taken with a pinch of salt; barely 10% of members bothered to respond. Whether this apathy is because no one cares, or because the members of the various organisations regard it as an unpleasant reality they would prefer to ignore, is anyone's guess.

McCoy says there is no credible alternative to the SSI concept now on the table, so a vote against it is a vote for the status quo. The heads of all the current organisations are fearful that the status quo is simply not sustainable in the medium term. I find the apathy, and antipathy, of ISA members surprising. For all that the ISA is hallowed by the traditions of its 50 years of existence, the SSI proposal appears to be a rational attempt to put a professional body for the profession on a sustainable commercial bases. It is a broad church, but that merely reflects the modern survey profession. Various special interest groups, such as cadastral surveyors will find it easy to meet with colleagues in a SIG. They do not have to mix with people trying to sell radar images of Indonesian forests. Of course, rubbing shoulders with strangers leads to who knows where.

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