Consultation on the UK Council for
Psychotherapy’s future shape
Contents
Foreword................................................................................................................................................ 2
How you can reply................................................................................................................................ 3
Other formats ........................................................................................................................................ 3
Further information ............................................................................................................................... 3
The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) .................................................................................... 4
This consultation and some key messages ..................................................................................... 5
The importance of profile ............................................................................................................ 5
Charitable status........................................................................................................................... 5
Core principles .............................................................................................................................. 6
A clear structure ................................................................................................................................... 8
A Members’ Forum....................................................................................................................... 8
Consultation questions .................................................................................................................... 9
An Executive or Management Committee ................................................................................ 9
Consultation questions .................................................................................................................. 10
A strategic Board ........................................................................................................................ 10
Consultation questions .................................................................................................................. 11
Committees ................................................................................................................................. 11
Consultation questions .................................................................................................................. 12
Colleges and organisational members.................................................................................... 13
Consultation questions .................................................................................................................. 14
All of the consultation questions ...................................................................................................... 15
Shape Working Group members ..................................................................................................... 16
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Foreword
I am proud to be the Chair of the leading body for psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic
counsellors in the UK. When I was elected I promised to review the shape of the UK Council
for Psychotherapy. I made this promise because I was aware that, since we introduced
changes to our structure in 2009, certain changes were working well and some not so well;
there was also a growing disquiet amongst some members about some of the changes. It
was also felt that now was a good time to look back on those changes to see how they had
bedded in over the five years of working with this new structure.
To help me do this, I asked a group of practitioners, staff and trustees to come together in a
Shape Working Group to advise the Board on where we are and what they would
recommend. In turn the Group asked members what they felt. This included an open-ended
call for ideas, face-to-face meetings around the country, online discussion and targeted
qualitative research. The working group’s report, and the feedback it received from
members, can be found on our website here: http://www.ukcp.org.uk/news/consultation-onukcps-future-shape
The Board has considered the working group’s suggestions, and bar some further
refinements, has endorsed what the group has said. This document is the Board’s formal
consultation on the proposed changes. I would urge you to read and respond to the
questions we ask here, as well as reviewing some of the background papers.
Following this consultation, the proposals will be developed into constitutional wording
(together with a simplified set of governing documents to increase transparency) which will
be voted on at a General Meeting in October. The area that will be approached differently is
the role of our Colleges (see page 13) where we recognise the need for further work.
As well as the formal changes we plan to make in October, some clear messages came
through for the Board. The majority of those who took part in the consultation highly value
what UKCP registration and our regulatory framework stands for. However, there is a strong
desire to see this better promoted than people feel it currently is. We also had lots of
feedback on the value of communication. People particularly welcomed that we ran meetings
across the country where they could come together and discuss the issues raised. We have
heard this, and we believe that the proposals outlined here will make it easier for us to
develop agreed plans for how we increase the profile of UKCP and engage our members in
doing that.
I would like to thank all of you who wrote in with comments, took part in the research,
attended meetings or provided feedback through LinkedIn. There was a wide range of views,
and we are never going to please everyone, so I would particularly like to thank the working
group members for giving their time and thought to unpicking some difficult issues and
coming up with a very balanced set of recommendations. These proposals present an
opportunity for us to make UKCP an even greater professional body for psychotherapists
and psychotherapeutic counsellors. I firmly believe that by doing this we will also be acting in
the best interests of our clients and the wider public.
Janet Weisz, Chair of UKCP
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How you can reply
This consultation will run until Friday 31 July 2015.
You can respond to this consultation by:
 sending an email to shape@ukcp.org.uk
 writing to Shape Review, UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), 2nd Floor Edward
House, 2 Wakley Street, London EC1V 7LT.
Please include the following in your response:
 Your name and contact details.
 Your organisation, if applicable.
 The capacity in which you are responding (for example as an individual UKCP
member, as an organisational member, on behalf of an organisation etc).
 Whether you would like us to keep your name confidential.
Other formats
If you would like a copy of this consultation document in another format, for example large
print or hard copy, please email shape@ukcp.org.uk.
Further information
If you have any questions about this consultation or how to respond, please email
shape@ukcp.org.uk.
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The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
We are the UK’s leading professional body for the education, training and accreditation of
psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors. Our membership includes individual
therapists and both training and accrediting organisations.
UKCP is the quality mark for high standards in psychotherapy. We hold the national register
of psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counsellors, listing those practitioner members
who meet exacting standards and training requirements. We also hold a specialist register
for psychotherapists qualified to work with children and young people. These registers are
accredited with the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA). As
part of our commitment to public protection, we deal with complaints about UKCP members.
We are a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. We are governed by our
Board of Trustees which oversees the fulfilment of the charity's objectives. A number of
committees and working groups report to the Board, or to the Executive Committee, which
oversees ongoing work. The way the organisation is governed is laid out in our Articles of
Association together with our Byelaws and Standing Orders.
All members, whether individual or organisational, are also members of UKCP Colleges.
These represent distinct philosophies of psychotherapy, including psychotherapeutic
counselling. Members may also take part in the work of our faculties; these are groups of
members (organisational and individual) who share a mission or interest.
We also have a Psychotherapy Council where all layers of UKCP gather together to debate
issues of consequence to psychotherapy, the profession and to UKCP.
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This consultation and some key messages
This document is a formal consultation by the Board of Trustees on proposals for improving
the way UKCP works. It is very closely based on the work of an advisory group chaired by
the Chair of UKCP, Janet Weisz. The Board considered the recommendations of this
working group and have on the whole endorsed them (you can see the working group’s full
report on the consultation webpage: http://www.ukcp.org.uk/news/consultation-on-ukcpsfuture-shape).
We have specifically used the term shape rather than governance, structure or strategy to
describe the subject of this consultation, because what we want to do crosses over all three
areas. While the core proposals and questions in this document are mostly about structure,
they are driven by a fundamental set of principles that are related to what we stand for and
hope to achieve.
The starting point for this work was to recognise that UKCP has many roles and that while
these can be a source of tension they can also be complementary to each other. We are a
regulator and register, upholding high standards in our profession. We are a professional
membership organisation, offering benefits such as our magazine and events. We are acting
in the public interest by promoting access to therapy, lobbying, and helping to raise
awareness of the benefits of therapy.
We made changes to our constitution in 2009 in the expectation that statutory regulation
would be introduced. Recent consideration specifically of those changes from a technical
governance perspective – while recognising that there was much that was good about our
structure - highlighted that members had differing perceptions of our underlying role and,
therefore, what our priorities should be.
The shape review took that as the starting point, and asked some fairly basic questions of
our members and others about what should be driving us. The responses to these questions
led to the development of core principles that any further changes should aim to meet
(outlined below).
The importance of profile
The responses also highlighted that most members who took part felt that it was vital that
UKCP should raise the profile both of what our register stands for and psychotherapy and
psychotherapeutic counselling. This was seen as central to all of our roles and of benefit to
both the public and the profession. In turn, an increased profile would increase our ability to
influence public policy.
We believe that the proposals in this document will make it easier for UKCP to develop an
agreed strategy. The ways in which members, volunteers and staff work together to develop
our future direction are more clearly defined. The feedback from the consultation so far also
provides much useful insight into what that future direction should look like.
Charitable status
The responses we received also highlighted that while many members valued and wanted
us to provide more membership services, the majority saw our role as a register and
regulator acting in the public interest as most important. Public trust in what we do, along
with recognition of what UKCP standards mean, was seen as critical.
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Our roles as a charity, a membership body and a regulator are interrelated, and this was
widely acknowledged by consultation respondents. We can and will continue to provide and
develop membership services. But a key message from this process has been to reiterate
that the public interest is at the heart of everything we do. This in turn reinforces the decision
taken many years ago to establish UKCP as a registered charity with the legal obligation to
act in the public interest at all times.
Core principles
Looking at what members and others said, the working group proposed a set of core
principles that should shape any future changes to UKCP. The Board welcomes and
supports these core principles.
1. Serving the public interest drives everything UKCP does.
The public interest includes:
 safeguarding
 ensuring diverse approaches are available
 helping to encourage diversity of both therapists and clients
 enabling access to therapy
 ensuring the quality of therapy available
 modelling good practice.
2. Psychotherapy is at the heart of UKCP.
 This means striking the right balance between psychotherapists’ and UKCP
employees’ contribution to running UKCP.
 UKCP harnesses the creative tensions that can arise from difference.
 UKCP recognises the value of both publicly trusted regulation, and also of
psychotherapists’ personal self-regulation and maintenance of standards.
3. UKCP is participative.
 UKCP provides the opportunity for therapists to shape the UKCP agenda, and
actively seeks to empower UKCP members to take part.
 We aim to support a vibrant regional presence or network that members can engage
with. This includes encouraging local psychotherapy clubs or special interest groups.
 Where UKCP has representative or elected posts, these post-holders are chosen on
the basis of one member one vote.
 Both individual members and organisational members are vital parts of UKCP.
4. UKCP promotes and values diversity amongst both those who access and those
who provide therapy.
5. UKCP promotes and values difference in: modality; ways of working; work
settings (e.g. private, charitable and NHS); and client groups.
6. Everything UKCP does is open to scrutiny and where appropriate done in
partnership.
 Other professional groups, policy makers and lay users should be part of UKCP
standard-setting and regulation.
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
There should be transparency across the UKCP structure.
7. UKCP can demonstrate to both members and the public the value of UKCP
registration.
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A clear structure
Our structure needs to reflect these core principles, and also reflect feedback that we are
currently too complex. Our proposals therefore aim to:

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clarify roles
include a clear representational voice of UKCP psychotherapist members
bring together UKCP psychotherapists and non-psychotherapists in a constructive
way to provide direction and leadership to the organisation.
In line with the changes introduced in 2009, we are proposing that there are three core
elements to our governance:

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a Board of Trustees
an Executive or Management Committee
a Members’ Forum.
However, we are proposing some fundamental changes to these, in order to reflect the
feedback we received and the principles put forward by the Shape Working Group.
A Members’ Forum
We want to ensure that the voice of members is at the heart of UKCP, reflecting the second
core principle. We want that voice heard clearly, both by us on the Board and by all those
working within UKCP. It should help shape and drive what we do at every level.

We propose a new Members’ Forum to replace our current Psychotherapy Council. It
will take on the existing powers of the current Council but be more clearly linked both
with UKCP centrally and with the membership.
The Forum will provide guidance and advice to the Board of Trustees on future direction
and strategy. It will also be a place for discussing new issues and key areas of work. It
would provide a space where different voices and views can come together to identify
areas of commonality.
Critically, as well as being a place where things are talked through, we want the Forum
to make clear recommendations on future direction. We would expect future meetings to
be structured in a way that allows both open-ended discussion of new ideas, and some
indication of members’ wishes.
The current Psychotherapy Council was in part envisaged as fulfilling this role, but we want a
stronger representative voice that is able to provide a clear steer on what members think and
feel about issues. To achieve this, in addition to having the current Psychotherapy Council’s
powers, the following is proposed for the new Members’ Forum:

The Chair of the new Forum would be a regular attendee at Board meetings. They would
be invited as an observer and would be able to contribute, but would not have voting
powers. This would in effect allow them to come to the Board and express the views of
the Forum without the legal requirement of a trustee to act in a non-representational way.

Similarly, we would envisage the Chair having a role elsewhere in the organisation. For
example, they might be part of the new Management or Executive Committee outlined
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below. We would welcome views on ways in which this Forum could work more
effectively to support and help shape the work of UKCP.

Likewise, the Chair of UKCP, the Chief Executive and normally three trustees would be
expected to attend the Members’ Forum and give a report of the activities of the Board
and the wider UKCP. Forum meetings should be timed to take place at critical points in
the annual planning cycle to ensure that the voices of our members can be heard in time
to influence decisions.

The Forum would be made up of members elected from a clear constituency. In that way
they would have a legitimacy of voice which would be hard to ignore. Additionally, they
would be able to both seek wider views and then feedback the outcome of decisions.
This would include:
o Individual members (elected by one member one vote – could be on a mix of
those elected on a regional and national basis)
o trainees (elected by one training member one vote)
o organisational members (elected by one member one vote)
o colleges and faculties
o honorary fellows (selection process to be decided).

As with the current Psychotherapy Council, the Forum would be an open meeting that all
members could attend, although if it came to a vote, only the elected members would
have a vote.

To encourage participation, the meetings would be held in different cities during each
year.
Consultation questions
1) What do you think of the proposal to create a new Forum to help ensure members’
voices are heard more clearly across UKCP?
2) Do you have any further suggestions for how the Forum could help shape our work?
An Executive or Management Committee
There is a perception that in some ways the voice of psychotherapy has been lost in the way
UKCP does its work. While we believe this may reflect the complexity of UKCP and the
challenges of developing effective communications in an organisation of our size, we also
recognize the need to ensure that therapists feel they are at the heart of our decision
making.

We are proposing the creation of a new Executive or Management Committee that
leads on the implementation of strategy. This should bring together UKCP therapists
and staff, and be chaired by a psychotherapist, reflecting the principle of
psychotherapy being at the heart of all we do. This in turn implies that as a Board we
focus on our strategic oversight role (see below), leaving the detail of how that
strategy is to be implemented and developed to this separate committee.
The extent of the role of this group versus the Board’s role has been considered.
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
This would be different from, and replace, the existing Strategic Committee. It would
effectively be a Cabinet-style group with decision-making power within the broad
boundaries of the overall strategy. In line with charity law it would be responsible to
the Board, which would set its remit and terms of reference.
What is proposed is a wide-ranging committee that brings together implementation
issues across all of UKCP’s work, including such areas as media and profile,
membership services and lobbying. It would make its activities transparent through
publishing minutes of meetings, etc.

This group would meet both before and immediately after each Board meeting (in
addition to holding any other meetings it might require).

A critical difference from the current Strategic Committee would be that the group
would be chaired by either the Chair or Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees. The
current Strategic Committee is chaired by the Chief Executive. We believe this would
give a clear indication that psychotherapy and UKCP therapists are leading our work
at every level.
We envisage up to eight members of this committee including:

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the Chair of the Board of Trustees, who chairs the committee
the Chief Executive
two people from the regulatory committees (see section below)
a psychotherapist from the non-regulatory committees (see below)
up to three other members.
Consultation questions
3) What is your view of the proposal to create a new Management or Executive Committee
that has the role of overseeing delivery and implementation of the UKCP’s strategy,
chaired by the Chair of the Board of Trustees?
4) Who else should be part of this group? Senior staff with key responsibilities? The Chair
of the new Forum? A lay trustee?
A strategic Board
UKCP should continue to be a charity, acting in the public interest. That implies that it retains
a Board of Trustees with full legal responsibility for UKCP and a duty to focus on the public
interest. However, there are different models for the way charity boards work, from very
hands-on and operational through to more strategic. We are proposing that UKCP aims for a
Board that sits at the strategic end of the spectrum.
Most of the Board’s members need to be psychotherapists (in line with the principle of
ensuring that psychotherapy is at the heart of UKCP); however, we propose that Trustees
need not be ‘representational’ of different parts of UKCP as they are under the current UKCP
governance documents. Charity law requires that trustees always act in the interests of the
charity as a whole and therefore in line with the public interest. The present situation
confuses their role with that of the new Forum, which is where we envisage the voices of the
different UKCP constituencies will be represented.
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
We want to move to a Board that contains psychotherapists elected by the whole UKCP
membership to fulfil the duties of a trustee. Additionally, lay trustees should continue to
be appointed to fill gaps required to help oversee an organisation as complex as UKCP
and to help UKCP ensure it is addressing the public interest. The Board proposes the
following make-up:
 an elected Chair who is a UKCP psychotherapist or psychotherapeutic counsellor
 an elected Vice Chair who is a UKCP psychotherapist or psychotherapeutic
counsellor
 four directly elected members of UKCP
 three lay members (which might include service users)
 an appointed treasurer
 up to two people co-opted onto the Board in order to meet specific skill needs.
These could be either UKCP therapists or lay people (bearing in mind that the
Board must always be made up of mostly UKCP members).
The Board members’ terms of office would be overlapping, in order to ensure continuity and
to make sure that we did not lose a large group of the Board at any one time.
Consultation questions
5) What is your view of the proposal for the Board to have a more strategic focus?
6) Do you agree with the proposed make-up of the Board? If not, what would you prefer to
see?
7) Do you have any other comments on the proposals relating to the Board?
Committees
We currently have a complex arrangement of committees and working groups. During the
consultation, respondents highlighted the complexity of UKCP as a major issue. People were
unclear about where decisions are taken and how UKCP operates. This complex structure
was also seen as the cause of internal divisions. UKCP has the following committees
reporting into different parts of the organisation:
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Conference Committee
Diversity, Equalities and Social Responsibility Committee
Education, Training and Practice Committee
Ethics Committee
Executive Committee
External Affairs Committee
Finance Committee
International Committee
Professional Conduct Committee
Professional Occupational Practice Committee
Professional Regulatory Committee of the Colleges and Faculties
Service Development Committee
The Psychotherapist Editorial Board
UKCP Book Series Editorial Board.
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In addition, there is a Research Faculty that has a Research Faculty Committee. This
committee has the role of fostering research within UKCP.
These committees depend on the goodwill and commitment of volunteers.
The Board wants to simplify this complex structure of committees and to distinguish the
regulatory role from the other functions.




We propose that the only formal committees should be those relating to regulation.
The Board may continue to operate through governance sub-committees, but these are
for carrying out specific trustee functions, such as a finance committee.
Other areas should have, as required, working groups that work more informally and are
set up by the Board or the new Executive Committee, possibly centred on specific
activities. We would envisage that research would have such a group because it is
fundamental to our charitable objectives. Many of the other working groups are likely to
be time limited – such as the Shape Working Group that made the recommendation this
consultation is based on.
The role and remit of these groups should always be clear, so that volunteers
understand what they are taking on and do not find themselves committed to
unreasonable workloads or that their work is not recognised. These working groups
would usually report to the new Executive Committee unless there was a clear reason for
them to report to the Board (such as the Shape Working Group).
We want regulation to be seen to be as independent as possible from the perceived selfinterest of members. The PSA who accredit our register believe we achieve this currently.
However, there needs to be accountability within the regulatory process; this is different from
accountability for individual regulatory decisions. If something goes wrong with the process,
we need our Chief Executive to be responsible for this and to be able to take action to
correct it.

The accountability for the regulatory process (not individual decisions which are always
made in a transparent, fair and confidential way) should clearly be through the Chief
Executive (to the Chair and Board). Alongside this, the regulatory committees should
feed into the proposed Executive Committee.
The Board are concerned that the existence of a Diversity, Equalities and Social
Responsibility Committee (DESRC) is potentially counter-productive and means that issues
of diversity might be ignored by the rest of UKCP. We believe we have done some good
work in the area of diversity (such as our series Black men on the couch, and our work on
conversion therapy), but we also recognise we have a long way to go.

We propose to ask DESRC to continue as a working group for a period while it develops
recommendations for how UKCP can embody the principle of valuing diversity, and it
does this working with the new executive committee.
Consultation questions
8) Do you agree we should simplify the UKCP committee structure?
9) What is your view of the proposed approach to doing this outlined here?
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10) Do you agree we should specifically task the DESRC with developing a sustainable
approach to embedding diversity in all our work?
Colleges and organisational members
UKCP colleges are collections of members – organisational or individual – who share a
philosophy of psychotherapy. Each college holds standards for education, training and
practice that are compatible with UKCP’s generic standards and with the individual college’s
philosophy. Colleges are responsible for accepting applicants into full membership of UKCP;
all members must belong to a college.
Colleges can be seen as one way that UKCP delivers on our core principle of valuing
difference (see page 6). Colleges allow for the promotion and development of specific
modalities, ensuring that standards reflect modalities and providing a place where those with
a similar training can come together. However, they can also be seen as a source of
divisiveness within UKCP and an added layer of red tape. During the Shape Working
Group’s deliberations, both views were heard from members.
The Shape Working Group did not reach a clear conclusion on the way forward for Colleges.
They acknowledged that the current model does not appear to be working, and they felt
there was a need to seek further input for members and colleges on the best way forward, a
view the Board endorses. Some concerns we have with the current situation include:

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Some colleges are modality-specific, while one is setting-specific (universities) and
one is client group-specific (children).
They vary hugely in size, in terms of numbers of organisational members and
individual members.
Some are struggling to fulfil their regulatory functions and they feel the burden is
increasing.
The colleges do not fully reflect the different needs that arise from our members’
work settings, locality, or career development.
This is not intended as a criticism of the hugely valuable contribution made by those
engaged in helping their Colleges function (many of these contributors come from
organisational members). UKCP remains indebted to the hard work of a number of
individuals who give their time voluntarily. Instead, it points to a fundamental structural
problem at the heart of the way we are organised. The question for us is whether we retain
the current role of colleges and focus on making that work – or whether we begin to rethink
the way colleges are organised.
Related to this is the sense of being undervalued that some of our organisational members
have felt since we introduced the potential to become a direct member in 2009 and to be
reaccredited by a college rather than a training organisation. The Shape Working Group has
recommended that we retain direct membership, but that we address the sense
organisational members have of feeling undervalued. The Board endorses this view.
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We are therefore asking a set of questions about colleges to help us find an appropriate way
forward.
Consultation questions
11) What is the appropriate role for colleges?
12) How much of the regulatory function should be centralised?
o If more of the regulatory role was centralised, how far should UKCP reflect
different modalities in its standards versus creating a more generic high
standard of registration?
13) If the current role of colleges was retained, what would be required to make colleges
function better?
o Should there be greater consistency across colleges? If so, what might that
look like (eg size, approach)?
o How can we ensure the college structure reflects the changing nature of
psychotherapy and therapists?
14) If we changed the role of colleges, what might it become? For example, should they
become more like special interest groups promoting their modality or area of work?
15) How can we make sure that organisational members feel they have a voice and are
valued within UKCP?
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All of the consultation questions
Members’ Forum:
1. What do you think of the proposal to create a new Forum to help ensure members’
voices are heard more clearly across UKCP?
2. Do you have any further suggestions for how the Forum could help shape our work?
An Executive or Management Committee:
3. What is your view of the proposal to create a new Management or Executive
Committee that has the role of overseeing delivery and implementation of the
UKCP’s strategy, chaired by the Chair of the Board of Trustees?
4. Who else should be part of this group? Senior staff with key responsibilities? The
Chair of the new Forum? A lay trustee?
A strategic Board:
5. What is your view of the proposal for the Board to have a more strategic focus?
6. Do you agree with the proposed make-up of the Board? If not, what would you prefer
to see?
7. Do you have any other comments on the proposals relating to the Board?
Committees:
8. Do you agree we should simplify the UKCP committee structure?
9. What is your view of the proposed approach to doing this outlined here?
10. Do you agree we should specifically task the DESRC with developing a sustainable
approach to embedding diversity in all our work?
Colleges and organisational members:
11. What is the appropriate role for colleges?
12. How much of the regulatory function should be centralised?
o If more of the regulatory role was centralised, how far should UKCP reflect
different modalities in its standards versus creating a more generic high
standard of registration?
13. If the current role of colleges was retained, what would be required to make colleges
function better?
o Should there be greater consistency across colleges? If so, what might that
look like (eg size, approach)?
o How can we ensure the college structure reflects the changing nature of
psychotherapy and therapists?
14. If we changed the role of colleges, what might it become? For example, should they
become more like special interest groups promoting their modality or area of work?
15. How can we make sure that organisational members feel they have a voice and are
valued within UKCP?
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Shape Working Group members
Jenny Burr
Keith Carlton
Andy Cottom
Alex Crawford (staff)
Eugene Ellis
John James
Sophie Kennedy (staff)
Judith Lask
Louise Lilley (staff)
Benet Middleton (external consultant)
Martin Weaver
David Fitzgerald
Sally Forster
Janet Weisz (Chair)
The Chief Executive David Pink attended some of the meetings.
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