Regulations for Corporate use of the Title ‘Chartered Psychologist’

The Society welcomes the development in which a group of Chartered Psychologists working in conjunction with each other, for instance in a partnership, describe their firm by reference to the corporate title ‘Chartered Psychologists’.This practice is adopted by other Chartered professions; e.g. a firm of accountants such as the Society’s auditors are described as ‘Robson Rhodes, Chartered Accountants’. However, when a group of Chartered Psychologists use a title corporately in this way, Council requires that the following conditions are met:

That all psychological services offered or agreed by the corporate concern or organisation are provided by or under the direct supervision of Chartered Psychologists.

In addition, if a corporate concern or organisation also uses a specialist adjectival title, e.g. ‘Chartered Occupational Psychologists’, then the same principles will apply. In this example all psychologists offering or agreeing to provide professional services in psychology without supervision under the aegis of this corporate concern must be registered as Chartered Occupational Psychologists.

Some implications of these regulations are as follows:

(a) A corporate concern using the title ‘Chartered Psychologists’ might employ or have junior partners who are Conditionally Registered trainees, for whom the fully registered Chartered Psychologists within the corporate concern will act as supervisors, taking a measure of responsibility for any psychological services provided by the trainees.

(b) Similarly, a corporate concern using the title ‘Chartered Psychologists’ might employ people who are not Chartered Psychologists in a professionally subordinate role to undertake particular types of psychological work (e.g. administer psychometric tests). In this situation the Chartered Psychologists will remain responsible for the standard of psychological work done under their aegis by co-workers who are not themselves Chartered Psychologists.

(c) The Society accepts that non-psychologists, for instance an accountant serving as a Managing Director, may serve as fully integrated senior members of staff or partners within a corporate concern adopting the title ‘Chartered Psychologists’, provided such people do not offer or purport to offer any psychological services. However, where the activities of such people from other professions are concerned with providing independent professional services directly to members of the public which are not claimed to be psychology but might nevertheless be confused with it, for instance, social work or management consultancy then the firm or group should not adopt the corporate title ‘Chartered Psychologists’. To do so might confuse the public by implying that the social work or management consultancy services were being provided by Chartered Psychologists. (The psychologists in the corporate concern will individually be encouraged to call themselves Chartered Psychologists but not the firm or partnership as a whole.)

(d) If a corporate group of ‘Chartered Psychologists’ through the aegis of their organisation hire or arrange for ad hoc psychological services to be provided by psychologists who are not registered (e.g. a training course to be offered by a visiting overseas psychologist or a non-registered psychologist from the UK) then the Chartered Psychologists in the corporate concern remain responsible for the quality of the service provided if complaints have to be investigated by the Society. In these circumstances care should be taken not to mislead anyone into believing that such people are Chartered Psychologists.

(e) It is not necessary for the names of all or any Chartered Psychologists involved with a corporate concern or organisation to appear in the title and it is to be expected that some corporate concerns will retain the names of retired or deceased former Chartered Psychologists. Custom and practice within the United Kingdom accepts that the legally registered title of a partnership may retain the names of people no longer associated with the firm, e.g. retired partners.

No regulations can anticipate every eventuality, but in cases of dispute the guiding principle will be that no members of the public should be misled by the title and description of a corporate body into assuming that Chartered Psychologists are responsible for the psychological services offered or provided by that body when this is not the case.