The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7304 p775
19 June 2004

Society summary

Council to take an urgent look at the draft Charter on 30 June

The new Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has agreed to give urgent further consideration to the draft new Charter for the Society, but it but will leave the Charter petition with the Privy Council rather than seeking to withdraw it immediately.

At the June Council meeting, the Council directed the Secretary and Registrar (Ann Lewis) to inform the Privy Council forthwith that, without prejudicing its ability to withdraw the petition, the Council wished to submit changes to the draft Charter after further consideration by the Council and the membership. Changes are to be considered at a Council strategy day on 30 June.

The decision was made through an amended version of one of six motions put forward by Nicholas Wood. As a result of the decision, the Council decided that three of the other motions should lie on the table until after a Council strategy day about modernisation to be held on 30 June.

The Council also carried a motion requesting that a committee be set up to establish the Government’s requirements for the Society’s regulatory function. However, it was then decided that the Society’s office would research the matter before the strategy day, when a decision would be made on whether a committee was still needed.

Mr Wood withdrew a motion concerned with the legal action taken by members of the Save Our Society group.

Opportunity to re-evaluate position

Introducing the debate on Mr Wood’s motions, the President (Gill Hawksworth) said that, on the advice of the Department of Health, the Council had submitted its Charter petition in December 2003 so that its decisions could inform the drafting of the Section 60 Order under the Health Act 1999 for consultation in early January. Since then, the Department’s timetable had slipped and it was now expected that the draft Order would be issued for consultation in the autumn. This timetable change gave the Society an unexpected opportunity to re-evaluate its position. She wanted the Council to use that opportunity.

In procedural terms there was nothing to be gained from withdrawing the petition, which would unravel the whole process. It could take months to approve a new draft, which would need to be gazetted and consulted upon from scratch. If the Charter remained lodged with the Privy Council, there would still be an opportunity to suggest amendments.

The Clerk to the Privy Council had advised that changes of substance, such as a rewording of Object 3, would be possible, subject to consultation with the Department. But for more significant changes, such as a new Council composition or power to delegate to a regulatory board, the Society would need to start the process afresh. Since Privy Council policy could never be different from government policy, it was highly unlikely that any proposal conflicting with the Section 60 Order would be approved.

Above all, the Society needed to maintain political credibility. Throughout this process the Officers had always endeavoured to secure maximum benefit for the profession as a whole. They recognised there was a fine balance between achieving this and responding to the sincerely held views of some members. The Council had to seize the moment before the Section 60 Order was sent out for consultation, and withdrawing the petition could have disastrous impacts because there was insufficient time to restart this process from the beginning. The best course of action was to ask the Privy Council to await suggested minor modifications following discussions on the 30 June strategy day. There would be time to consult the whole membership on any proposed modification, possibly by a postal ballot.

Motion 1: withdrawing the petition

Moving his proposal to withdraw the Charter petition, Mr Wood said that the Council election result indicated considerable support for the policies of the Save Our Society group and a wish that the Council would consider the petition again. A referendum on the Charter had been denied.

Mr Wood was not impressed by the President’s arguments for leaving the petition with the Privy Council and tinkering with minor changes. He wished formally to propose the motion, which was: “That the Secretary and Registrar be directed to inform the Privy Council forthwith that the Council wishes to withdraw its petition for a new Royal Charter, pending further consideration by the Council and members of the Society generally.”

Serious step

Hemant Patel, seconding the motion, said that the proposed step was a serious one, but getting it right was important. What concerned him was that the Charter wording agreed at an “away day” in December 2003 had been acceptable, but changes had been forced through both the Officers and Council at the last minute. That was poor governance, and the decisions needed to be reconsidered.

Nicola Gray said there was a broad misconception that the Privy Council would accept whatever wording the Council proposed for Object 3. The final wording was in the Privy Council’s gift. She commended the SOS campaign for the fact that it had raised a lot of issues during the Charter consultation, and many changes had been made. But SOS did not have a monopoly on Object 3, and other members had equally sincere feelings.

Michael Schofield said that pharmacy was the last profession to address the issue of modernisation. The report of the Shipman inquiry was due in about two months and it would be a severe indictment of present regulatory practices. For the Society to be sailing towards these rocks in a state of total disarray was unwise. He had been told that the only reason why pharmacy regulation had not been given to the Health Professions Council was that it was too difficult. But it would not look difficult if the profession were in disarray.

He was certain the Council should stick with the new Charter, pursuing any concerns with the Privy Council. The Privy Council was not a group of dignitaries sitting with the Queen in Windsor Castle. In reality, it was the Department of Health.

Sultan Dajani said that making the same mistakes the Council had made for the past two or three years did not mean those mistakes would go away. If the Government wanted to impose upon the Society, capitulation now would not prevent decapitation later. There was no firm guarantee that self-regulation would stay in a few years’ time. The Council needed to move forward, and it had to take the members with it.

Bob Michell said that the UK had a tradition of admiring gallantly conducted catastrophes against overwhelming odds, which was what the Council was being invited to repeat. As a Privy Council appointee, he had two priorities. The first was whether what was proposed was consistent with the public interest — “consistent” meaning not necessarily in the public interest, but not against it either. He believed that the motion was wholly against the public interest. If the Society lost the government’s ear, regulation would not be through some board with a broad majority of pharmacists, but through a consumer protection quango with a few pharmacists as advisers to a huge majority of consumer representatives. The Society had the ear of the Minister to a degree that was the envy of other self-regulating professions.

The best ways to lose the ear of government were to appear divided among the members and to demand what the government could not concede. The SOS campaign managed to fulfil both. The real world was not interested in the exact wording of how to represent pharmacists’ interests. The real world was interested in seeing proper regulation and proper redress when pharmacists made mistakes.

The new Charter that was before the Privy Council left pharmacists with an enviable degree of independence and stronger input into regulation of colleagues. Whether or not the Council threw this away depended on whether it wanted the Society to operate in the real world of tough government and antiprofessional bias or in a pharmaceutical Ambridge — an everyday drama full of fascination for its enthusiasts but with no influence on real events of importance.

His second priority was whether it represented due process. SOS claimed to be the voice of a profession disenfranchised by the improper actions of its professional body. But the actions of the Society were in no way illegal or improper, as clearly reflected in the summary dismissal of the High Court action. More importantly, an analysis of the Council election results over recent years showed no evidence of massive support, as opposed to apathy, either in the votes of the winning candidates or the increase in those bothering to vote at all. If the Council withdrew its petition rather than considering minor modifications, it would make fools of the whole profession.

He was not a pharmacist, but he wished to end by reading from a recent issue of The Pharmaceutical Journal the wise words of someone who wrote: “The risk we could face now, as a result of the Council election, is that in the near future the Government may conclude that the Society is unable to put in place a satisfactory form of self-regulation for the profession. Should this occur we may find that our Society becomes a powerless representative body, while the formulation and implementation of the regulations whereby individual pharmacists practise will be set by an external body.” (PJ, 5 June, p704).

The Vice-President (Alison Ewing) said that she had been expecting to hear Mr Wood give cogent reasons why the petition should be withdrawn. Instead, all she had heard was that the membership did not want it. What could be gained by withdrawing the petition that could not be gained by amending it?

Single issue

The Treasurer (Linda Stone) said that those Council members who had been defendants in the SOS action had been constrained from debate on the Charter for six months. Now that the action had been dismissed they were able to speak. Those who had been elected on an SOS ticket would feel constrained by the fact they had been elected almost on a single issue. It was always a little easier to organise a campaign against an existing body, because when you are on the outside looking in you can raise every criticism you want. But when you came into the body, you realised the constraints you were working in made it more difficult.

The Society was an anomaly among health regulators. It had had a regulatory role by law since the 1930s and de facto since about 1880. No other health regulator in the world had that dual role. What was interesting was that the first consultation on the modernisation issue was on that dual role and the professional had overwhelmingly wanted to continue with a dual role. There had never been any suggestion from the Government that the Society could not continue with the dual role.

SOS had accused the Council of wanting the Society to be only a regulator. But if the petition were to be withdrawn, it would be SOS that created a separate regulator, because that is what would happen, and the Society would be left with little in terms of its professional leadership role.

Hassan Argomandkhah said that there were no guarantees that any amendments would be allowed if the Charter were left with the Privy Council. The Society had been advised that if it sought major changes it would almost certainly need to petition again. So they might as well have the damn thing back and do it properly.

The President repeated that the time scale did not allow for the petition to be withdrawn for substantial amendment. If it were withdrawn, the Section 60 Order would overwrite the Charter. The Society’s powers would be taken out of the 1953 Charter and put into the Section 60 Order. She thought her proposal would satisfy most people who were concerned about Object 3.

Andrea Robinson (chairman of the Society’s Welsh Executive) reminded the Council that the Welsh Executive strongly supported the new Charter. If it were withdrawn now, the Society would lose all the opportunities it represented for strengthening both the roles.

Martin Astbury said that, when the Council had consulted on the Charter, it was open for everybody to have their input, but it was debatable whether they would have been listened to. A few titbits had been thrown at the last minute — on the strategy day immediately before the third draft was railroaded through. That was a shame, because if those titbits had been thrown in before the original consultation, something could have been sorted out.

If it was known that the draft Charter could be tweaked, why had amendments not been prepared as soon as the election results came out, when the writing was on the wall? Foreseeing problems at this meeting, the Officers should have got together some of the key players to prepare amendments, so that the meeting could have discussed amendments rather than withdrawal.

The President said that she took exception to some of the things Mr Astbury had said. The “railroading”, as he called it, was part of a long process of consultation during which the Council had listened to the membership and changed things. There had been some last minute alterations, but that was not “railroading” anything through. It was part of due process.

She took Mr Astbury’s point about the Officers. But the roles of the Officers were specific and did not extend to changing policy, which was the direct prerogative of the Council. What she had done before the meeting was to weigh up the situation, take advice and suggest a solution that could be taken forward within the small window of opportunity that had opened with the delay to the Section 60 Order.

Mr Astbury said his point was he thought there could have been some discussion beforehand, maybe with the person who was putting the motions, to see whether there was any sort of compromise that that could be reached.

The Treasurer said that the Council had strategy days when such issues could be discussed, and the President had suggested that the matter be taken to the next strategy day. Discussing the minutiae of potential modifications within a Council meeting was difficult.

Digby Emson reminded the Council of the enormous amount of work already undertaken. He did not believe that the views around the table were far enough apart to throw all that work out. The President had made a good suggestion, and he was happy to propose a motion that they consider the matter at the strategy day.

His reading of the situation was that there was room for manoeuvre with amendments, including Object 3, if they did not conflict with Government policy, but there was no room for manoeuvre if they were to withdraw the petition and start again with a two-board model.

His personal view was that there was a lot of strength in having a combined Council that was both regulator and professional advocate. All the significant issues that came before the Society involved both regulatory and professional considerations. The Society was unique in having the ability to manage both aspects carefully, balancing public interests and members’ interests in the most appropriate way.

There was a convincing argument that withdrawing the Charter would in effect be losing the Charter. At the moment the Society was still in the driving seat. It had struck a good deal. It had a greater professional majority on the proposed new Council than any other health care regulator. All that would be at risk.

A regulatory Charter

Maurice Hickey said that his worry with the Charter was that it had such a focus on regulation. He knew it had been tweaked, and bits had been put in about representing the profession, and so forth, but it was a regulatory Charter. The Society had had a regulatory role since 1933. It was in the gift of government and could be taken away by government. The Charter included a clause saying that, if the Society was wound up, its assets would go to a similar body, which would have to be another regulatory body. Effectively the government would win. It could legislate the Society out of existence and gain control of its assets. That was the danger he saw in the Charter.

It was all very well to for the President to recommend taking it to a strategy day. But the members had been sold a pup again and again in the past year. Even in December 2003, the Council agreed one thing on one day and another thing was forced on them the next. It was “take it or leave it”, with 15 minutes to discuss it. He thought the only way forward was to seek to withdraw the Charter. The Section 60 Order could be written in conjunction with possibly a variation of the good Charter that was in existence and, perhaps, rewriting the Byelaws.

The Secretary and Registrar reminded the Council that regulation was much wider than the Statutory Committee, which was only the disciplinary arm of it. In a letter to her, Jim Smith, the chief pharmaceutical officer for England, had made it clear that the basis for moving forward was the Government’s response to the Kennedy report, which included a broad definition of regulation that included training, assessing competence, support for improvement — many of the things the Society already did.

Clive Jackson had no doubt that everybody around the table had sincerely held views and wanted the best for the profession. The Society was on a long and difficult journey, and if he were to be convinced that it should change direction by withdrawing the petition, he needed to see a new destination that could be reached within the allotted time left. As yet, he had not seen a clear new destination. All he could see were various possible scenarios that would be fundamentally detrimental to the profession’s medium and long-term development, leadership, management and influence.

He was prepared to work hard to achieve a realistic and pragmatic way forward, but not to spend time looking backwards into the dust of the track they had already gone over.

Get it right

Douglas Simpson said that he had listened recently to Steve Williams, deputy chairman of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, talking about the new contract for pharmacists. He had made the point: “Don’t get it quickly; let’s get it right.” He thought the Society went too quickly with perceived ideas of government pressure when government had not been able to meet its own deadlines. The Section 60 Order could only deal with regulation. That was quite clear from the Health Act. The only part of the Charter that could be overridden was the part concerned with regulation. In fact, there was nothing in the current Charter about regulation at all. There was all the other activities that the Society did, including representing pharmacists’ interests.

Mr Simpson said that the Government could not take regulation away from the Society without primary legislation. It would need an Act of Parliament. If that was a threat, it was a hard one for the Government to achieve. Personally, he did not think the Department of Health wanted to take regulation away from the Society. Pharmacists had been regulated well by the Society for many years, and setting up a new body to do it would be difficult.

It was claimed that self-regulation was being preserved. But it was not professional self-regulation. It was professionally led regulation with public participation, which was quite a different animal. A board set up to do that would not be the right kind of board to run a professional association. That was the heart of the whole problem.

There had been talk about having the existing work thrown out if the petition were withdrawn. But that valuable work would not be wasted. All that was being asked was that the outcome of that work be changed. There were more things about which members were dissatisfied than just Object 3 in the Charter.

Letter from Dr Smith

The President wished to read part of the letter sent on the previous day by Jim Smith, chief pharmaceutical officer for England. In his third paragraph, Dr Smith said that government policy “was restated in the government’s response to the Kennedy Report in January 2002. We said that we wanted a strong system of self-regulation that explicitly put patients first and is open and transparent and allows for robust public scrutiny. We also said that the professional regulation should be properly at arm’s length from ministers.”

He went on: “Opponents of [the Council’s] approach advanced an alternate model in which all the regulatory functions of the Society were discharged by a board or committee. However, this could not form the basis of a satisfactory proposal from the Society. The Health Act 1999 allows for a broad range of functions to be dealt with by the Order. These include, among others, keeping the register of members admitted to practice, determining standards of education and training before and after admission to practice, giving advice about standards of conduct and performance and administering procedure, including making rules related to misconduct, fitness to practise and similar matters.”

The President said she had read because she wanted it on public record that two-board model, or something purporting to have a board or a committee, would not be acceptable.

Mr Simpson suggested that the Society should try to negotiate on the terms of the letter.

The President said that the Section 60 Order was practically complete and the Government was only waiting to see what happened in the Council chamber. The Government would not negotiate, and if the Council withdrew the Charter, all the powers would go straight into the Section 60 Order ready for consultation in the autumn.

Charter will strengthen Society

Christine Glover said that the Society needed the Charter to strengthen its position, to give it a degree of autonomy and to enable it to function in a way it thought was right and not to be subject entirely to government whim. It needed a Charter that was up to date and appropriate, and that was why the Charter should change at the same time as the Section 60 Order was being laid. If the petition were withdrawn, the Order would be laid on the assumption that the only Charter in existence is the one the Society has already. That Charter would be superseded through the Order because it is not appropriate for today. There was not time to rebuild the Charter because by the time it had gone through all the stages necessary to bring it to the point of being accepted by the Privy Council, the Section 60 Order would be laid anyway.

She had never seen such a clear document from a government department as the letter from Dr Smith. There could be no argument about what he said. Withdrawing the petition was a no-no. If the Council wanted to take the petition back, everything that Mr Hickey feared would come to fruition, but it would have been at the doing of the SOS supporters.

Mr Wood suggested changing the word “withdraw” in his motion to “resubmit” and change “pending” to “following”.

The President said that was putting into place what she had suggested.

Noel Wicks asked whether the letter from the chief pharmaceutical officer for England was accompanied by similar letters from the other chief pharmaceutical officers.

The Secretary and Registrar said that the legislation was UK-wide. The Section 60 Order was formulated on behalf of all the health departments. It was not devolved. Although his letter was on Department of Health notepaper, Dr Smith was expressing the view of the UK Government.

Amended Motion 1

After a break, Mr Wood said that he had an amended motion which he believed would be generally satisfactory and which most the Council might be able to accept: “That the Secretary and Registrar be directed to inform the Privy Council forthwith that, without prejudicing its ability to withdraw the petition, the Council wishes to submit changes to its petition for a new Royal Charter after further consideration by the Council and members of the Society generally.”

What he would like to do would be to seek confirmation from the Privy Council office before taking a vote.

The Deputy Secretary and Registrar (Philip Green) then left the chamber to telephone the Privy Council. On his return, he said that the amended motion, would not be a problem. If the Council subsequently resolved to withdraw the petition, that would not be a problem either. The Privy Council would not pursue a Charter if the body responsible for the profession did not wish to pursue it.

Mr Wood said that he was satisfied with that assurance.

Mr Argomandkhah asked for it to be put on the record that, in supporting the amended motion, the Council was putting absolute trust in the advice it had been given that afternoon.

Graham Phillips said that, on the basis of the advice Council had been given, he would be happy to second the motion.

The Secretary and Registrar suggested that the proposed wording was wrong in that it was the Charter that they wanted to change, not the petition. It was a point of accuracy.

Mr Wood thought that was acceptable and asked to change the word “petition” to “draft Charter”.

The President said that she had allowed a lot of debate and tried to find a way forward. Mr Wood had listened to what she had recommended and amended the motion. She asked the Council to vote on the motion. They had had a helpful debate and she thanked the Council.

The Council then voted on the amended motion, which was carried unanimously.

The Treasurer said that, in view of the decision the Council had just taken, she wished to recommend to Council that motions 2, 3, 4 and 5, which were related in some ways to motion 1, be allowed to lie on the table. They, and the issues around them, could be debated properly at the strategy day, when the Council would have more time and more freedom.

Mr Wood said he was content for them to be discussed at the strategy day, but thought that broadly they needed to be considered. The motions were intended as a coherent whole in the main. He was still inclined to say they needed to be considered. They could try to do them relatively quickly.

The Secretary and Registrar could see no problem with motion 2, but motions 3, 4 and 5 were rather dependent on the outcome of the decisions on 30 June. They would probably be well informed by the discussions on 30 June, bearing in mind Dr Smith’s letter.

Professor Schofield asked if Dr Smith would be willing to come to their strategy day. That would make a difference.

The President said he would be at the Council dinner that night. It was a good suggestion to ask him.

Motion 2: setting up a committee

Mr Wood said that, if there was not an issue over motion 2, he could simply put it. A review of some sort needed to take place, not least to bring some information to the new members of Council.

Mrs Glover asked whether the committee would meet before the strategy day or after.

The Secretary and Registrar said if the Council did require a report on any aspect of the background, for example informing further discussions, it could be produced most speedily by the office and in line with normal practice. They would look to see what could be provided in time for the meeting on 30 June. It did not prevent a committee being set up.

Mr Wood thought that might be helpful. If the Council were formally to pass the motion, they could still have the review done by the office. Then they could decide subsequently on a format of committee and what further work might need to be done.

Mr Simpson said he was happy with that. It would help Council members to have more information. He seconded the motion.

Mr Emson said that if it helped bring people up to speed on a complex issue, he supported it.

Mrs Glover said that the motion was to have a committee, but by the end of the strategy day they might not want one. They should let the motion lie. If they needed a committee at the end of it, so be it.

The Treasurer suggested asking the office to do as much as they could over and above what they had already done. When the Council saw what had been produced on the strategy day, the decision could be taken then whether or not to form a committee. The motion tied their hands.

Mr Jackson said that he was happy with the motion apart from “and a final report by the December 2004 Council meeting”, because they were probably all agreed that the timing of that was now far too late.

The President suggested they took the motion as it stood but without the final bit. There would be a full stop after “possible” and the rest would be deleted.

The President asked the Council to vote on motion 2, as amended, ie, “That a committee, the members of which are to be confirmed by Council, be formed to review urgently all correspondence and reports of meetings between representatives of the Department of Health, the Privy Council office, CRHP and the Society, to establish the requirements of government in regard to the regulatory functions of the Society, such a committee to provide an interim report as soon as possible.”

A vote was taken. The amended motion was carried.

Motion 6: legal proceedings

The President said she would take motion 6 next.

Mr Wood said he intended to withdraw the motion, but he would speak first.

The Secretary and Registrar referred the Council to advice the Society had received that the motion would be invalid and improper for a number of reasons.

Mr Wood said that, because motions had to be tabled with 14 days’ notice, he had had to draft the motion more than a fortnight ago, and things had moved on since then. For that reason he was withdrawing it.

Motions 3, 4 and 5: Byelaws

The President said that she wanted to turn to motions 3, 4 and 5, which she considered interdependent. Members had received briefing notes on the motions, including the letter from the Department of Health and the note of previous government statements and report of Council decision’s about the models.

The Secretary and Registrar drew the Council’s attention to paragraphs 5, 6 and 8 of Dr Smith’s letter. He had not been asked to comment or advise on the motions, but his remarks should be borne in mind by the Council before they discussed those motions.

Proposing motion 3, Mr Wood said that it asked for another look at what could be viewed as an interim measure to provide for a regulatory board. Investigating the possibilities of a regulatory board of this type would dovetail in with the existing work that had been done to develop the Section 60 Order. What he was asking for was another look at the way in which a regulatory board might be set up under the existing Charter while the proposed Charter was on ice.
John Jolley, seconding the motion, said that the Society was in danger of underestimating the depth of feeling over the issue. It might be easy to achieve a compromise solution and communicate it effectively to the membership to put their minds at rest.

Professor Michell was bewildered that anyone who understood the direction in which the Government was travelling could put such a motion. The motion came from Disneyland. It had nothing to do with reality. He did not like the current realities, but they were there.

The profession was in an enormously privileged position, with a huge role to play. But if it submitted this kind of Disneyland stuff to government it would lose the ear of government.

He wished to convey the extent to which the Society had the ear of government. The Society’s President saw the Minister when she needed to and frequently. It was an enormous privilege and other professions were envious. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons had battled for at least seven years to meet the Minister but the appointments were always cancelled — even during the period of the foot and mouth outbreak, which was regarded as the most expensive peacetime disaster to befall Britain.

Professor Schofield thought the Council had overcome two big hurdles and made a lot of progress. It was in danger of falling over a lesser hurdle when it did not need to. He proposed that the three motions lie on the table until the strategy day, when the Council could discuss them properly.

Mr Simpson thought that it would do no harm to do a paper exercise in relation to motion 3, so that they had some clear model for the strategy day to consider, with the chief pharmacist there, hopefully.

Mr Emson had sympathy with Professor Schofield’s amendment, and would be prepared to support it. But he was conscious that they had spent hours debating this already. If they could have found a way through it, they probably would have done so by now.

Mr Dajani did not believe that it was Disneyland to look at alternatives that could be moulded and worked into practical solutions. Leaving the motion on the table would not give a steer for the strategy day.

The Treasurer said, speaking solely to Professor Schofield’s motion that Mr Wood’s motions 3, 4 and 5 lie on the table, she thought it interesting that motion 2 was all about trying to gather further information, to reflect on existing information, to help to inform the decisions on 30 June. She would rather that the further debate was taken in light of as much information as possible. She had no problem with that. She did have a problem with diverting people to produce something that may or may not be wanted in light of that further information. She supported Professor Schofield’s motion that these motions lie on the table.

Mr Patel suggested that Council should leave the motion on the table but in the meantime do some work, perhaps just digging up paperwork and bringing it together. Something had to be done to win confidence and unite the Council.

Mr Wood said he would be prepared to accept that, now he had heard the debate.

The President said they would have the meeting in the assembly hall and return to the Council chamber at the end of the day for a formal meeting.

AGM motion

The Council moved on to consider the motion from Mark Walker that was carried at the Society’s annual general meeting. The motion had invited the meeting’s approval of a counter-petition to the petition for a new Charter.

Mr Patel proposed that the AGM resolution should be left on the table and considered when the rest of Mr Wood’s motions were considered.

Professor Schofield seconded the proposal, which was agreed.

Answering a question from Mr Phillips, the President assured him that the Council’s decision and the reasons for it would be conveyed to Mr Walker.