The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7201 p796
8 June 2002

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Reforming the Society's Council: how the profession is currently represented

Having set its direction of travel, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society says that reforming the Council and the way in which it operates will be its next priority. Jonathan Buisson (on the staff of the Pharmaceutical Journal) looks at some of the issues to be addressed

Reforming the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Council is now the top priority under the modernisation agenda. A series of options papers are to be published in The Journal later this month. In order to understand what could change, it is worth looking at the rules governing the Council at present and how it is currently constituted.

The Society's Charter (section 10) says that "there shall be a Council of the Society consisting of twenty-one elected members" and other members appointed under the Pharmacy Act 1954. At present there are three lay members appointed by the Privy Council, making a total of 24 members.

The Society's Byelaws (Section XII) require the seven Council members who have served longest without re-election to retire each year. Only pharmacists normally resident in Great Britain, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands can stand for election. The Byelaws also stipulate that the single transferable vote system should be used in the election.

Geography or employment sector?

One of the claims often made about the Council is that it is unrepresentative of the spectrum of pharmacists as a whole. To judge the accuracy of this, one has to look at how the Council is currently made up and compare this with figures taken from the Register. According to the latest available figures, in May there were 44,349 registered pharmacists.

There are two main ways in which the Council could be representative: geographically or by employment sector. Table 1 shows the percentage of the membership in each area or sector, the equivalent number of seats on a 21-member Council and the actual number of seats following this year's election. It should be noted that there is considerable uncertainty in the Registry figures as these are based on the returns made by members with their retention fees. These are not always completed in full and offer only a limited range of options. For example, no specific figure is given for primary care and around 20 per cent of the membership is classified as being "unknown" or "not given".

From Table 1 it can be seen that while the Council is not perfectly representative of the membership as a whole, being skewed towards community pharmacists living in England, it is not as bad as is sometimes made out. Having said that, pharmacists in Wales and those in the industry are clearly losing out. There is also an underrepresentation of women on Council. Female pharmacists now make up just over half of those registered, but there are only eight female Council members out of 21.

Of course, as it stands, Council members do not actually represent any given area or sector and are elected purely on their own merits to represent the whole profession.

Other pharmacy boards

It is instructive to look at what happens in other areas of pharmacy. Two of the other principal pharmacy organisations, the National Pharmaceutical Association and the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, have representatives elected on a regional basis. The PSNC also has a number of appointed members.

The NPA has 21 elected board members (16 from England, two from Scotland, two from Wales and one from Northern Ireland). The PSNC has 25 members, of whom 15 are elected (14 from England and one from Wales) and 10 appointed (five by the NPA, four by the Company Chemists Association and one by the Co-operative Pharmacy Technical Panel).

There are now six members of the Society's Council who sit on the PSNC, four of whom have a triple role in also being NPA board members (Gerald Alexander, Wally Dove, Hemant Patel and Kirit Patel).

Issues for consideration

When considering how a reformed Council should be constituted, there are many other issues that need to be examined:

• Should members of the profession be elected or appointed (or both)?
• Should Council members be selected on a regional or sectoral basis (or both)?
• Should the overall number of Council members be increased?
• What proportion of lay members should there be?
• How long should members serve for and how many terms of office should they be allowed?
• Should there be a retirement age for Council members?
• What role should the Council have: strategic/policy making or executive?
• Should regulatory, as well as disciplinary, matters be delegated to other committees?

Reform of the Council is now sought, and many might say that it is long overdue. Members should make their views known during the forthcoming consultation period to ensure the constitution of Council reflects their expectations and the needs of the profession.