Whatever may have happened over the last six months has no doubt been dwarfed by the EU referendum result and the seismic political fallout and current uncertainty on so many fronts – political, economic and financial – before we begin to consider the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.

STEP is monitoring the situation closely and is in discussions with other relevant professional bodies as well as maintaining lines of communication with civil servants and the like to do all we can to ensure our and our clients’ interests are taken into account. On this last point I hope you have seen the weekly digest of 30 June asking for comments as to concerns and opportunities. Please do respond to this.

While Brexit may be uppermost in our minds at the moment (closely followed perhaps for some by the perennial debate about the ability or otherwise of our sports players to perform), much else has been happening.

More than 300 attendees assembled for STEP’s second Global Congress in Amsterdam at the end of June. It was tremendous that the event was a sell out. Delegates came from 44 countries – a true sign of the global nature of the issues we currently face in our industry.

The focus of this Global Congress was ‘advising families across generations’ with sessions offered on private international law, conflicts, and the changing definition of ‘family’ on the first day, with the second day focusing on transparency, and looking especially at how members – as experts in their fields – can use their knowledge and skills to become part of the solution, informing the process and helping governments, the OECD and others to understand how trust and other structures work, and encouraging dialogue on issues that are critical to our world.All in all, the event was a great success.

And back in March we held the Branch Chairs’ Assembly (BCA), which was well supported with members of the Scottish regional committee in attendance as well recognising the many areas of mutual interest and common concerns at branch level. Members of the committee in Northern Ireland were also invited but unable to attend.

Particular themes coming out were:

• The benefits of a central resource of the names of speakers and topics that branches have held to assist other branches in compiling their programme. STEP is looking at how best to provide such a resource.
• Creating a higher public profile for STEP. This second point was consistent with feedback from the Leaders’ Forum last December and will be picked up in the ‘Your STEP’ initiative by STEP Worldwide before filtering back to the regional level for practical outworking.

We were fortunate to have Senior Judge Lush of the Court of Protection as our guest speaker who gave a potted history of some of the important court decisions relating to damages awards before suggesting that STEP provide qualifications for Deputies and case workers as there is no other body of which he is aware that is providing this on a holistic basis. We are looking into this possibility in conjunction with the Mental Capacity special interest group.

As it transpired, this was David Harvey’s last BCA and we wish him well for his future and thank him for his significant input to STEP over his 15 years as Chief Executive.

As always there have been numerous consultations and other issues over the last six months where STEP and the various committees have been actively involved – including the proposed hike in Probate Court fees, the Mossack Fonseca data leak, contributing to the revised code of Professional Conduct in Relation to Taxation (PCRT) and discussions with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) on some of their proposed changes. And this is before acknowledging the various different courses, webinars and other training and education events that have been organised across a wide range of subjects.

This will be my last report as chair of the regional committee and I want to thank all the staff at the STEP office for their tremendous support and enthusiasm over such a wide range of issues without which we would all be much the poorer and my role would have been impossible. I have also appreciated the dedication of members and others who give of their time and expertise on the various committees to help keep us up to speed on all the legislative changes (who can forget FATCA?!) as well as forging links with government departments and other influential organisations here and further afield. As a result STEP has often ensured a better understanding of the practical issues and seen changes made.

Finally my congratulations to all those who have been shortlisted as Private Client Awards finalists and the students who recently passed exams as well as those who won awards in the inaugural Worldwide Excellence Awards. The future of STEP should be in safe hands!

 

Alex Elphinston TEP is Chair of STEP’s England and Wales Regional Committee