On August 6th, the BACP posted an extraordinary statement informing its members and the public that it had removed two very senior officials from post with immediate effect. It claimed this was due to the discovery of financial irregularities. This was followed by statements on social media from both officials contesting the truth of the accusations and threatening legal action. To seasoned observers of organisations, these events bear the hallmark of an internal power struggle. But we will need to wait for more to be revealed. Public interest should stimulate some press investigation and coverage.
In the meantime, CTA has chosen to post a placeholder in the form of the short video by the BACP President which accompanied the official statement. Presumably, the executive team believed this would reassure members and the general public. Unfortunately, this tactic is woefully misjudged. The short video, bland and meaningless, looks more like an early iteration of an affirmative governance chatbot – a slightly out-of-focus headshot prompted to utter loops of disconnected words and empty phrases ; “Integrity … ethics …moving round a corner ….coming together … integrity …. ethics … serving the public … moving round a corner…” on and on. Whoever has won this recent power struggle has a lot to learn.
We all wait to see how this crisis unfolds. Maybe just maybe it signals the beginning of the end of the BACP, an ideologically-captured organisation that has failed the profession and the clients the profession serves.
In the meantime, it would be worth reviewing some earlier posts about the BACP in our CTA repositry spelling out its unfitness for purpose including: BACP and Terfism; BACP and Its Queer Theory Agenda ; BACP Attempts to Impose a Political Agenda on the Ethical Framework; Impact of the BACP’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy. Part 1 – Gender Identity and Part 2 – Race; Time to decolonise the MOU; and the BACP’s Performative Public Statement on the UK Supreme Court Ruling on Biological Sex
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