January 2024
I must report the very disappointing news that our petition to the BACP has been totally ignored!
Our petition representing 862 signatories (currently more than 1,030) was formally submitted individually to the Chair, governors, and others at the BACP on 26 November by email. More than five weeks later there has been no response.
A copy of the petition was also sent to the new CEO, Dr Phil James, on his first day in office on 14 December 2023 and similarly there has been no response. Phil James, the same man who published a request that “members reach out to me” has failed to respond to our petition or other members that I am aware have also contacted him directly.
Anyone wishing to contact Phil James at the BACP can email him directly at phil.james@bacp.co.uk and it would be interesting to see his reaction if every signatory of this petition takes a minute to let him know their thoughts!
I did repeat my request to Phil James on 30 December 2023 (with a further copy of our petition) to investigate senior members’ callous treatment and received an automated reply saying that a few weeks after joining as new CEO he was “on leave for the holiday season”.
I am at the stage of believing that our only way to be heard, and to establish a transparent and democratic association, is by bringing in new governance to BACP.
All the evidence around our complaint, as well as thousands of other members’ complaints, regarding SCoPEd and the general governance of the BACP now appears to confirm beyond doubt that governance of our Association is not interested in the memberships’ views.
As Groucho Marx once said, “I would not want to be a member of any club that would have me”, and I would not want to be a member of any association that does not respect the views of its members!
It appears that we either choose to end our membership of the BACP or we change the governance to a transparent and fully democratic association by replacing the current Chair.
I am investigating how to best instigate the serving of a Notice to the BACP to bring about a change of governance.
At some point a petition will be required and my own view is set out in the draft below, but I fully appreciate there will be many opinions on the best way forward, and of course 2,750+ members will have to sign.
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DRAFT ONLY
That every member of the BACP who wishes to see the governance of our association transformed into a thoroughly transparent and fully democratic organisation sign a petition to replace Natalie Bailey with a new Chair under Article 38 of the Articles of Association, that the new CEO Dr Phil James is mandated to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting and approve the motion to be submitted by more than 5% of the membership (2,750+) to replace the existing Chair, that "nominee to be agreed" be invited to take up the position of Interim Chair for a minimum term of one year and oversee the necessary changes towards becoming a transparent and fully democratic governance, that includes suspending the current trajectory of the SCoPEd framework implementation pending full reassessment with membership ballots, that the formal review report on the governance of BACP recently undertaken by an ‘independent expert’ be published in its original and complete form with no redactions, and that respected colleagues including Professor John McLeod and his esteemed colleagues who signed an Open Letter to the BACP on 29 October 2023 be invited to become involved in the democratisation process and that informed pressure groups including Counsellors Together UK, the Person-Centred Approach group, and the Psychotherapy and Counselling Union have their views fully considered, and that each of the three categories of membership are represented, that is Registered, Accredited and Senior Accredited.
When signing the petition please add your BACP membership number as only members votes can be accepted.
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Happy New Year