Five hard questions — answered directly.

Not IPRM. Not any single society. Not an individual sponsor. The Council is convened by a founding Working Group of senior practitioners, under an independent Chair selected by an independent nominating committee. The convenor's only role is to stand the body up and then dissolve into it — gaining no permanent control.

It is not asked to. The Council does not absorb, dilute or extinguish any existing credential. Bodies retain members, brand, events and history in full, and gain a licensed Partner Body role. Existing credentials are recognised, not erased — mapped onto the new tiers through the Legacy Equivalency Pathway.

None is assumed — and that is the point. Before any new standard is finalised, the Working Group commissions an independent benchmarking review against international references such as the Global Alliance, IPRA, CIPR and PRSA. Where an existing credential already meets the bar, it is adopted.

The assessment panel is not drawn from any single society's membership. It is constituted from across the profession and beyond it — senior practitioners, media institution figures, academics, public-sector communicators. Conflict-of-interest rules prevent any assessor from evaluating candidates from their own organisation.

The Council proceeds — but transparently. It publishes a clear participation threshold defining when it may credibly describe itself as 'national,' and the door remains permanently open for later entrants on identical terms. No single body is granted a veto by being permitted to stall the whole profession.