Council gazettes first batch of Regulations that will succeed Byelaws
The Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, at the October
Council meeting, approved the gazetting of a first batch of draft
Regulations to succeed the Byelaws of the Society (see p498).
The Council was reminded that the Society was currently engaged in revoking
the existing Byelaws made under the 1953 Charter and replacing them where
appropriate with Regulations under the 2004 Charter. The work programme
for this supersession of Byelaws with Regulations had already involved
dealing with some sections individually. These had included the Regulations
on election and appointment to the Council and on the establishment of
the national pharmacy boards. The remaining Charter Byelaws had been
grouped into batches for supersession, and the gazetted Regulations formed
the first batch.
In preparing the Regulations, the Society’s general goal had been
to keep to a minimum the amount of detail set out in Regulations and,
so far as was appropriate, to capture the rest (for example, principles
for ways of working) in protocols or guidelines, while avoiding improper
subdelegation. Although this first batch did not need it, some of the
Regulations in future batches would require the development of additional
guidance. Once the text of these future Regulations was confirmed, the
Society would be able to develop guidance to supplement them as appropriate.
(“Supersession” is the appropriate legal catch-all term to
describe what is being done with the existing Byelaws, as it can be used
to describe the removal of text that may or may be replaced by equivalent
text elsewhere. For example, the current Byelaw section concerning the
Common Seal is being revoked but roughly equivalent text can be found
in the draft Regulations. However, the current Byelaw section on meetings
for the reading of papers is now considered obsolete and so is not being
replaced.)
The Council was advised that the Society has recently updated its system
of numbering and nomenclature for the Regulations. The new Regulations
sections will be numbered consecutively as they are made and reordered
for narrative clarity when all the Byelaws under the 1953 Charter have
been superseded.
Introducing the draft Regulations, the Society’s head of corporate
governance, Christine Gray, commented on the Society’s general
principle that when superseding Charter Byelaws with Regulations it should
keep the enduring Regulations to a minimum and to supplement them where
appropriate with guidance. She explained that this policy would give
the Council flexibility to keep procedures up to date without having
going to go through the full Privy Council approval procedures every
time a change was required.
For this first batch, however, there was no question of additional guidance.
The draft covered interpretation, the remuneration of auditors, the Society’s
common seal, The Pharmaceutical Journal, the Society’s museum and
the Council’s ability to produce codes, procedural protocols and
guidance.
On the section concerned with The Pharmaceutical Journal, Mrs Gray said
that it proposed no changes. There was no defined list of what was required
to be published in The Journal, as opposed to what was published in accordance
with custom and practice, and external legal advice suggested that it
was not necessary for the Regulations to list exactly what was required
to be published. The Journal would respond to the Council’s decisions
as to what it wishes to have published.
With regard to the museum, there was a separate constitution for the
museum that was approved by Council.
There would be further batches of Regulations that would need new guidance,
but that was not applicable for this batch, which covered subjects that
were thought to be relatively straightforward.
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