ASSAP the Professional Body - Consultation

The Process

There have been a great many questions about exactly how this announcement came about. For those who are interested in the ‘process’ side primarily, this page should act as an explanation.

Point 1 – ASSAP was already a de facto professional body

As we understand it, the government does not recognise bodies that intend to become professional bodies, it recognises bodies that operate as professional bodies. 

The law prescribes – very precisely – what a professional body should do. Prior to registration as a professional body ASSAP ticked all the boxes for what a professional body does. Thus the change is one of ASSAP acting as a professional body for investigators of anomalous phenomena in all but name, to ASSAP being registered as a professional body in name.

Point 2 – Exactly who recognises professional bodies?

The definitive list of Professional Bodies and Learned Societies is held by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and is called List 3. The list is maintained by HMRC because of the financial implications of such bodies to payment of tax. There is current legislation about what a professional body is. The role of HMRC is to make a decision purely based on the law about what bodies can properly be defined as a professional body and thus be added to this list. ASSAP has been thus registered and our organisation and activities judged against legislation and has been approved. ASSAP’s name will appear on the public version of List 3 as soon as HMRC performs the next public update.

There were no months of negotiation, or negotiation at all, involved in this registration.

Point 3 – A slight delay

The reason for the slight delay in publishing this page was because we wanted to hear back from HMRC about how they deal with any challenges to the decision so we could offer that information here. HMRC do not enter into correspondence on any issue relating to professional bodies with members of the public or with any organisations. They treat all applications as confidential and the only public information they will offer is by updating List 3 to include the registration.

Point 4 – The announcement itself

On 10 September 2011 an announcement was read out on behalf of the ASSAP Executive, who had considered how the announcement should be made at an Executive Meeting. The announcement was known by non-executive officers as well as by the executive prior to being made. The prospect of the announcement was used in conference literature as ‘changing investigation for good’ and prior to the announcement it was stated the announcement would affect the vast majority of investigators. 

The announcement broke down into three sub-announcements. The first two of these related to the above claims. The general recognition of investigation of anomalous phenomena as capable of being a professional activity is good news for the vast majority of investigators.

The third announcement related to ASSAP’s registration as a professional body. This change impacts only on those who opt to participate in this aspect of the professional body. There is no direct impact on non-ASSAP investigators. It is also the case that existing ASSAP members are not affected. Any members or non-members will need to opt into any resulting internal scheme; there will be no automatic changes that will affect ordinary members.

While there has been misunderstanding out there and a few people who believe that recognition for investigators is a bad thing, the vast majority of people, both at the conference and who have passed comment to us since, have said this is a great step forward and long overdue.