“Would you generally trust this profession to tell you the truth?” That is the question in Ipsos Mori’s Annual Veracity Index for 30 selected professions. The 2020 Index, published last November, just before the RICS story broke, has engineers scoring an enviable 89%, only a few points behind the regular leaders in this survey, nurses and doctors. Estate agents, which includes some surveyors, scored less well on 27%, but at least better than government ministers’ 16%. But the surveying profession itself does not feature; not very encouraging public recognition of the profession of the land, on which every aspect of human life is played out. Little gratitude to the profession that has been maintaining and promoting its “usefulness…for the public advantage” since 1868?

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