Looking back and looking ahead

The end of the year provides an opportunity to reflect on all that we've achieved over the last twelve months, and it is fair to say that it has been an extremely busy time for the BPS, with a number of major projects coming to an end, and others just getting started.

This year saw our change programme draw to a close, a project that has seen everyone across the society working tirelessly to update a number of our systems and processes that had become extremely outdated and needed bringing up to scratch.

There were far too many individual achievements within it for me to mention them all, but as members I hope you are seeing the benefits of the investment that we put in through things like our new website, bespoke professional development platform which has welcomed more than 10,000 learners, new membership database and streamlined member communications.

We want to continue improving all of these areas, but it's clear to me that our systems are now in a much better place than they were a couple of years ago, and are now able to provide us with the platform to deliver much better value for your membership.

This year also saw a crucial member vote that has allowed us to modernise and strengthen our governance processes, and refresh our member grades for the first time in many years.

One of the key reasons for this was to allow us to welcome new people into our psychological community from the wider psychological workforce, providing a home for those working in newer roles that have become increasingly important.

We were able to secure accreditation from the Professional Standards Authority for our new Wider Psychological Workforce Register, which was a crucial step and a significant endorsement of our work to represent this new group.

A continued focus on equality, diversity and inclusion has seen us develop a new strategic board in this area, which will really begin to get stuck into its work in 2023 following the appointment of Dr Adam Jowett as its chair.

One particularly exciting development in this area is our partnership with the University of Leicester to offer a PhD focusing on the history of marginalised groups in UK psychology, utilising our extensive archives as its main research resource.

We continue to speak out on behalf of members on a range of key topics, including the current campaign on the Health and Care Professions Council's proposed significant fee increase, which has seen us lead a coalition of organisations opposed to the scale of the rise.

We've worked to ensure psychology's voice is heard by politicians and decision-makers, which I covered in last month's blog, and helped to get expert members' comments in the national media on issues including the implications of the Online Safety Bill and cuts to Universal Credit.

On the membership front, we end the year with two records in our membership figures – the most people we have ever had with membership of one of our member networks, and the largest number of chartered members in the society's history.

It means the world to us that we continue to get such healthy membership numbers and involvement despite the obvious economic challenges facing us all right now. Thank you from myself and everyone at the society for your ongoing support.

Looking ahead to next year, we will be developing a strategy for the longer-term having been working towards an interim one due to the effects of the pandemic. There will be plenty of opportunities for you to get involved and feed into this, which I would encourage you to do.

Our Member Network Futures Group is now up and running, and will continue its work towards a long-term solution for how we work successfully in partnership with our networks. There are regular opportunities to join the task and finish groups looking at specific issues in this area to keep an eye out for.

Finally, we're all excited about welcoming the European psychological family to Brighton in July for the European Congress of Psychology. Hosting this event is a huge honour for us, and we're confident that it is going to be a brilliant occasion.

Submissions close next month, so if you're interested in presenting your work take a look at the website soon, and we hope to see as many of you on the south coast as possible.

Thank you again for everything that you've done this year for psychology and for our community. Have a restful couple of weeks ahead of everything that 2023 has in store for us.