Our Open Letter to BACP

Dear Board Members and Phil James,

We are writing to you on behalf of our members to urge that you reconsider your approach to the review of BACP’s Articles of Association and governance framework. We believe that this must be undertaken in an open and transparent way involving the entire membership and allowing members to have the final say; this is essential in order to rebuild the trust between the Board and members which has been so severely eroded over the past few years.

We welcome your acknowledgement of the need for reform but an internal review falls far short of what is required and continues the pattern of refusal to engage with the many attempts by members to resolve the failing systems of governance and accountability that we have witnessed over recent years. This is not just the view of our members; it is the view of the numerous members of the BACP’s own staff and board who have resigned. been pushed out or removed since 2021.

BACP’s failure to respond to open letters and its blocking of attempts to use its own democratic structures leaves us with little confidence in a process of internal review.

We therefore demand that the board present to members an early draft of proposed changes to the Articles of Association and related systems of governance and hold a comprehensive process of consultation. A final draft should be presented to the AGM or an Extraordinary General Meeting with an open process of amendments and the final proposal must be put to the membership as a whole.

In addition, we are asking BACP to take the following steps as part of the process of restoring faith in its ability to act in the best interests of its members:

– Publicly respond to the October 2023 open letter, signed by experts, academics, PCU members and many other respected figures in the field

– Clarify the rationale, means and mechanisms for the removal of board members that has taken place since 2023, including the recent removal of the chair and deputy chair

– Publicly pledge not to use Non-Disclosure Agreements and acknowledge any historical use

-Publish the report of the 2024 ‘Independent Investigation’ and provide information about the following: the authors of the investigation; the period it covers; the concrete actions, if any, taken as a result of the investigation. We would also ask for an explanation as to why, when concerns about remuneration were raised in this report, this did not alert the organisation to the alleged remuneration problems that informed the board’s removal of its chair and deputy a year later

– Restore the central role of the AGM in democratic decision making. We would query how reducing the AGM to less than two hours without an in-person aspect improves accountability, transparency and governance

– Publish vote counts in further governor election

– Acknowledge the significant negative effect of SCOPED/PCPB on former accredited members, and on the many experienced counsellors placed in Column A whose skills and experience and being diminished and demoted

– Take up the invitation already sent to BACP to send representatives to the post AGM forum organised by PCU which is open to both members and non-members

Given this recent history we hope that BACP now grasps the severity of the problem it faces and we look forward to receiving your response.

On behalf of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Union

 

Response from BACP

On 17th October we received this response from BACP:

Thanks for your letter and for taking the time to share your concerns with me.

As you’re aware, we’re currently preparing for our AGM, which takes place online on Thursday 6th November.

This year’s event will include a 90-minute open and transparent discussion involving me, our President, Lynne Gabriel, and a member of our Board.

During this section, we’ll be addressing some of the challenges we’ve faced as an association in recent months, as well as looking forward to the exciting plans we have for the year ahead.

Importantly, there will also be an opportunity for our members to raise questions directly with our leadership team on the issues that matter most to them.
We want to hear members concerns and will aim to respond to as many as we can during the session. We may not be able to answer every question there and then, and wherever possible we’ll provide a written response – made available to all members – after our event.
We hope to see as many of our members there as possible.

Warm regards,

Phil
Dr Phil James, CEO

 

We are deeply disappointed by BACP’s response, which completely ignores the specific concerns we raised.