23^rd FIG General Assembly, Prague 2000
Appendices

APPENDIX TO ITEM 11.1

The activities of Commission 1 are progressing as proposed in the Work Plan, including the completion of the Commission 1 website and the publication of a newsletter.

The Annual Meeting of the Commission is planned to take place in Prague.

Working Groups

Working Group 1 is investigating organisational matters under the chair of Klaus Rurup. A questionnaire was sent out to all member associations seeking responses on public sector organisational structures that cover FIG activities, the method of providing services and the role of the private sector in the provision of such services. Only a minimal number of responses have been received. A report will be given at Working Week 2000 in Prague on the progress and results to date.

Working Group 2 is looking into business practices under the chair of Iain Greenway.

The working group met for a half-day session in Sun City, with good progress being made despite the limited attendance. An outline plan was created, which is being followed. The overall task of the Working Group is to produce a guide, particularly for small and medium size survey firms, covering three particular aspects of business practices: ethics, quality, and IT. The Guide will be produced during 2001, with a session at the FIG Congress in 2002 expanding on the work and content.

It was agreed at Sun City that we should progress the topics one at a time, with ethics first. Following the meeting therefore, three ethical dilemmas were created and were included in the Commission 1 newsletter (along with a progress report from the Working Group), the FIG Bulletin, the FIG web site, and the journal Surveying World in the UK. There have been a limited number of responses, covering a broad range of views, and a paper summarising the dilemmas and relating them back to theory is being presented in Prague with the aim of stimulating debate further.

A session at Prague on Quality Assurance in the Survey Profession will include a paper from John Parker on quality awards, continuing the debate on the topic of how such schemes and awards can be used to best effect by small survey practices. There will also be a paper describing the experiences of a Czech firm in implementing a quality programme.

Further discussions in Prague will determine how to take forward the IT strand of the work, and how to manage the process of creating the guide.

Working Group 3 under the chair of Stephen Djaba has developed a web site for Commission 1, which is accessible through the FIG website.

Other matters

The chair of the Commission was involved with the UN/FIG workshop in Bathurst from which the Bathurst Declaration emanated, as well as being part of the organising committee for the international conference in Melbourne on "Land Tenure and Cadastral Infrastructure for Sustainable Development". The UN/FIG Roundtable that followed the conference involved the chair in planning and attending.

Commission 1 was an active participant in the South East Asian Surveyors Congress held in Perth, including chairing and hosting a session.

As a result of activities by the Commission chair, FIG’s Publication No 16, "Constituting Professional Associations" is now on the World Bank website, as an example of how to set up a professional association, particularly aimed at countries that maybe contemplating or implementing a land administration project.

Many of the taskforces, including, Standards, Mutual Recognition and Under Represented Groups in Surveying have the involvement of the Commission.

Commission 1 has been given the responsibility for two of the sessions in Working Week 2000, being, "Quality Assurance in Surveyor’s Profession" and "Multidisciplinary nature of Surveying".

John Parker
Chair, FIG Commission 1, Professional Standards and Practice

25 February 2000

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