Page 6 - SyI Quarterly 7

Know your Institute
Know your Institute

Chief Executive’s Piece

Rick Mounfield CSyP FSyI

There has always been a healthy debate about the
value of post nominals. What are they worth, what do
they stand for and is quantity important? Do more
post nominals equate to more qualifications? I asked
myself the same as I retired from the Military and
I will share my perspective from the view- point of
the Security Institute as a Learned and Professional
society.
A Learned Society is defined by the Foundation for
Science and Technology (FST) as:
“Concerned with the advancement of the subject
discipline with which they are focussed and making
that knowledge available to all those who are
interested including academics and the general
public. Thus, as the earlier definition provides, there
is no private benefit because, although there may
be particular groups of people who have an especial
interest in the subject discipline concerned, the benefit
is open to all who may be interested and, at best, that
could be everyone in the world!

A learned society cannot be a profit making
organisation. Legitimate Post Nominals are issued by
the authority of a Learned and Professional societies.
Examples of these are ASyI Associate, MSyI Member
and FSyI Fellow [of the Security Institute]. It also
relates to Chartered status as afforded by the Privy
Council such as CEng- Chartered Engineer and CSyP-
Chartered Security Professional, both are relevant to
our sector.
Authority to Issue Post-Nominals

The United Kingdom and the Commonwealth
countries are the few countries in the world in which
institutions authorise their members to use post-
nominals. That authority is given by the constitutional
documents of the institution, and those constitutions
are either authorised by the State (Privy Council on
behalf of the Monarch representing the State), self-
granted by an organisation which incorporates as a
limited liability company, or authorised by the Charity
Commission when it registers an organisation as a
charity or a Charitable Incorporated Organisation.

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