Questioning the Expulsion – Part 1

This is the first of three posts looking closely at the recent expulsion of the Present-Elect.  We will be asking a series of questions about both the process and outcome, identifying what we see as major deficiencies which highlight, in stark detail, the issues which we have been raising about the sorry state of our organisation. Much of this is speculation and informed guesswork, some generalising from our own experiences because, despite the mass of defensive information coming from the BPS there are many serious omissions and obfuscations.

So, to begin at the beginning.

Can we trust the overall process?

Before we get into the fine detail, let’s step back and cast an eye over the disciplinary process itself.  We would remind you that in the Complaints FAQs on the BPS website there is the following statement

The Society does not have a function to investigate complaints against its members…

This, of course, is in complete contradiction to the various statements in the Member Conduct Rules which do outline such a function. If it were sentient, the complaints process would be in a serious existential crisis. 

We must also remember that we have been told, by the Acting CEO, that the Society is undertaking a root-and-branch review of the whole of the complaints procedure. To put it at its mildest, this suggests that all is not well with the process, whether it actually exists or not.

In addition, we must also ask who actually made the decision to pursue this complaint against the President-Elect. Again, to remind you, the CEO is still ‘out of the office’; there is no CFO; the President has resigned; the Vice-President has also resigned citing failures of governance amongst his reasons for going; we have an “Interim Chair” of the Board of Trustees (presumably this same Board that is accused of the aforementioned governance failures); an acting CEO who is, presumably, involved in the issues raised by the President-Elect. So the question remains, who decided? Was it the full Board of Trustees or some select subgroup of the willing? Was the complete (if depleted, of course, due to resignations) Board given full and unredacted information about the reasons for this course of action and its possible consequences? Who chose the Panel members and the Responsible Person? Did the Board as a whole and unanimously sign all this off?

In view of the serious and unusual nature of this whole business – disciplining the only remaining elected senior officer of the Society must surely rate as out-of-the-ordinary – and the fact that this would be subject to more than the usual degree of scrutiny from the membership and the outside world, one might hope (perhaps, vainly, expect) that the BPS would go to some lengths to show that justice would not only be done, but would be seen to be done.  It should be a shining example of how to do things right. This takes on a particular relevance in the light of the current application to the Professional Standards Authority where matters of monitoring and managing professional standards (the clue is in the name) are paramount.

We argue and will, we hope, show that the whole process, from start to finish, is fatally flawed and itself brings the BPS into disrepute. 

How “independent” is independent?

The various self-exculpatory outpourings of the BPS make great play of the ‘independence’ of the investigation. What does that mean to you? To us it suggests – at the very least – that whoever is carrying out the investigation is as far removed from both the current and past history of the BPS as possible. This is not just a matter of not being a Trustee or a member of the SMT. Many of the problems and issues identified by us and by others pre-date the election of Dr MacLennan by many years. Indeed, as we will see later, at least one past President identified serious problems as did the now-resigned Vice-President who had been in post (President-Elect, President) for two years prior to his abandonment of the sinking ship. So any properly constituted investigatory panel should comprise people untainted by previous appointments as Trustees or as senior post-holders with the BPS. This seems to be particularly important in the light of the fact that this may be, to our knowledge, a unique event in BPS history.  Ideally, the panel should be made up of people from outside of the organisation completely. After all, the allegations against Dr MacLennan were of ‘bullying’ – this is a generic, non-organisation-specific behaviour. You don’t need to know about the arcane intricacies of the BPS to recognise bullying when you see it. Again, given the importance of being seen to do this correctly, it would be sensible to have someone who has considerable HR experience. Was this the case?  No, it was formed of some (number unstated) of ‘…our most senior experienced colleagues…’. The fact is, however worthy and experienced,  they are not independent of the BPS. This failure is also shown by asking the Chair of the Ethics Committee to act as the Responsible Person –  who is accountable to and appointed by the Board. As an officer holder of a Standing Committee of the Board of Trustees, he is neither independent of the Board nor of the BPS. We assume (again, lack of detail makes this suppositional on our part) that he was completely distant from the everyday work of the Panel for otherwise he would be unable evaluate the evidence presented with fresh and neutral eyes.

It is stated by the BPS that 

The process was also conducted throughout with the benefit of independent legal advice to give additional assurance that it was being carried out with propriety and fairness.

This could mean all manner of things. Given that the whole complaints process is muddled and inconsistent and would need an awful lot of (expensive) lawyers’ and consultants’ time to sort through and make sense of, we can only hope that the BPS see this is a good use of your subscriptions. But the point we are making is that even if the letter of law was followed to the last dotted i and crossed t this is not the same as ensuring that the overall process was seen to be just. In our view, it could not be.

We will continue to raise questions in Part 2, to be posted tomorrow (21 May 2021).

Peter Harvey, Pat Harvey and David Pilgrim

BPSWatch Editorial Collective.