UKCP Statement following Judicial Review Permission Hearing

Below I have reproduced a report that has been widely circulated both within and outside the UKCP. I have posted it here for information of those who might not get to see it via the usual channels. Also, if you click the title of this blog you will find it linked to a statement by UKCP Chair and CEO.


REPORT FROM LEGALLY QUALIFIED LAY TRUSTEE OF UKCP TO THE BOARD

Having just returned from the preliminary hearing, I would like to provide the Board with a brief report.

As you can imagine, there was a great deal of detailed discussion as to matters of fact and law but it boiled down to the following: the judge declared that the claimants (AGIP, AIP, Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, College of Psychoanalysts – UK, Guild of Psychotherapists and The Philadelphia Association) were entitled to proceed with their application for judicial review of the conduct of HPC in making recommendations to the Secretary of State for Health regarding the regulation of psychotherapists and counsellors. This is what HPC were seeking to avert at today’s hearing.

Specifically, the judge rejected HPC’s arguments that the claimants were too late to lodge an action for judicial review and ruled that the claimants were entitled to proceed with their application for judicial review on all the grounds they had claimed. He suggested that there was some common ground and that the parties might meet.

There was considerable and detailed discussion about whether in acting as it did, HPC was simply conducting a feasibility study to assess its capacity to regulate psychotherapists and counsellors, as opposed to undertaking a broader exercise of making recommendations about statutory regulation of those professions. The judge concluded that the claimants were entitled to believe that it was the latter and not the former (despite HPC’s argument to the contrary) in view of the evidence presented to the court.

In a move I understand to be unusual in cases of this kind, the judge ruled that HPC must pay 1/3 of the claimants’ costs of today’s hearing.

From my observations of the hearing, the salient points were:

None of HPC’s arguments succeeded on the day;
Having heard the claimants’ submissions, the judge informed counsel for HPC that he was looking for some “knockout points”, which I took to mean he thought the claimants had made a convincing case. Having heard HPC’s case, he still ruled in favour of the claimants;
Unusually, a costs award was made in favour of the claimants so HPC is having to pick up some of the claimants’ costs.