Reinstate Paul Fox

Booted out of BWY!

By Paul Fox

Some of you may be surprised to learn that I have been expelled from the British Wheel of Yoga “in the best interests of the charity”, after serving BWY as a volunteer for over 20 years (including as Chair) and training over 200 BWY teachers. Since this happened in September 2022, I have been seeking to overturn what I consider to be an unjust and unfair decision but have now reached the point where I am waiving my right to anonymity and going public with what has happened.

This decision has not been taken lightly. However, until the decision to expel me is reversed and I am reinstated as a BWY member I live under a cloud that at any time someone could post online or elsewhere that I was kicked out of the British Wheel of Yoga for misconduct while Chair.

Those who know me personally and professionally understand my commitment to honesty and integrity. I refute the claim that I broke the Trustees code of conduct and set out here exactly what happened to the best of my knowledge. 

In this document, I will explain why I am launching a campaign to be re-instated as a member of BWY. In brief:

1. I have been put through a four-and-a-half year complaints process (1,392 days) starting in 2018 under a BWY Complaints Policy that states most complaints will be resolved within 28 days.
   
   
2. People with a clear and undeclared conflict of interest were allowed to lead, or participate in, the investigation of my alleged misconduct.
   
   
3. A motion to suspend/expel me was put before the BWY’s ruling National Executive Committee in 2019 and voted down, and yet the process continued.
   
   
4. In May 2021 – after two years and 5 months of the complaints process and a thorough examination by two sets of lawyers – I was officially informed by the Vice Chair on behalf of BWY Trustees that the complaints process was over and that the allegations against me had been “concluded and not upheld”. BWY Complaints Policy does not provide for a re-opening of a closed complaint unless a new complaint is made.
   
   
5. Despite this unequivocal decision, a reinvestigation was undertaken secretly during the first half of 2022 without me being informed or allowing me to submit any evidence or make any representations on my behalf.
   
   
6. An independent review of BWY’s decision to expel me was carried out during 2023 by a well-respected charity support organisation. This review found that BWY had not established that I had a conflict of interest to declare and did not have reasonable grounds on which to expel me, and that trustees had behaved in an unfair manner by singling me out for expulsion for what was a collective governance failure.
   
   
7. During this long and extremely stressful process, I was prevented from continuing to train teachers for BWY as a Diploma Course Tutor, and never at any stage offered the opportunity to discuss and rebut the allegations in an open process.
   
   
8. Concerns about the treatment of volunteers as a result of my case have been raised with BWY by the Charity Commission, indicating that there was a serious cause for concern about the handling of my case.

Call to Action

This process has been unfair and far outside the process set out within BWY’s own policies. This secretive process has taken away my livelihood and has placed unbearable stress on me, personally and professionally. If you agree that this process was wrong, please support me by calling for:

• A fully independent review of BWY’s decision to expel me, covering process, duration, and the sufficiency of evidence to take such drastic action.
  
  
• Reinstatement of my BWY membership and a quashing of the decision to expel me while the review takes place.
  
  
• If you are a BWY member, inform the organisation of your intention to resign unless this matter is dealt with in a speedy and equitable way.
  
  
• Sign the Reinstate Paul Fox petition on Change.org: https://chng.it/zN8HwfmCWS

·        You can also support me by writing directly to the British Wheel of Yoga: chair@bwy.org.uk

If you would like to be more involved in the campaign to reinstate me, please email me at paulfoxashtanga@hotmail.com

Thank you.

Background

In expelling me, the British Wheel of Yoga focused on my conduct in relation to the sequence of events around the signing of an NHS contract to create a yoga programme for the health service. I will now set out exactly what happened.

1.      During 2016, I represented BWY at meetings of the Yoga In Healthcare Alliance (YIHA), which had been set up to present to politicians and policy makers the case for integrating evidence-based yoga into healthcare. I was specifically invited to participate in this project because of the standards agenda I was championing at BWY, and the necessity for well-trained yoga teachers to be involved in this work. YIHA had correctly identified BWY as a high-quality training organisation. I saw this visionary work as having the potential to open new career opportunities for BWY teachers and fulfil BWY’s governing body role in England by providing leadership in the sector.

2.     So inspiring were the meetings held at the Houses of Parliament, that YIHA was approached by West London Clinical Commissioning Group and asked to create the first NHS-commissioned yoga social prescribing pathway for patients. The NHS offered YIHA a grant of £250,000 to create and deliver the Yoga4Health 10-week protocol to 300 patients in West London, with a substantial chunk of the funds earmarked for Westminster University which carried out an in-depth evaluation. This resulted in two published research papers which have since provided a compelling evidence base for yoga in healthcare.

3.     There are now accredited patient and staff protocols delivered by a network of 500 Yoga4Health teachers in the UK and worldwide (accreditation via the Royal College of GPs and the Personalised Care Institute set up by NHS Improvement and the Royal College). However, this project was almost derailed at the last moment. YIHA, being a relatively new organisation and not a charity, did not pass NHS due diligence tests and was not at that stage a registered charity. Other organisations were considered but these also did not meet the strict criteria. By now it was March 2017. The NHS wanted to award YIHA £250,000, but unless the money could be transferred within two weeks (i.e. by the 5th of April 2017 financial year end) the funds would no longer be available. The NHS commissioner asked me if the British Wheel of Yoga would be prepared to step in and act as the fundholding body on behalf of the Yoga In Healthcare Alliance so that the project could go ahead.

4.     On the 23rd March 2017 I wrote to the NEC (only 5 members at this time) about this urgent opportunity: -

Dear NEC and [BWY manager’s name redacted]

We have previously agreed to support the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance initiative to run an 8-week early intervention yoga programme for patients referred by GPs who are at risk of developing lower back pain, Type 2 diabetes and suffering from stress/anxiety.

I am pleased to tell you that the West London Clinical Commissioning Group has agreed to allocated £250,000 to fund this trial, starting in the Autumn. I am currently the lead person creating the practical content for this intervention and the involvement of BWY will enhance our reputation going forwards.

The proposal put to the CCG to fund this programme of work envisaged the £250,000 being paid to the [name redacted]Social Enterprise. However, the board of the CCG decided that the funds must be deposited with a registered charity. So we have been asked by the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance founder, [name redacted], and [name redacted] from the West London CCG if BWY would be willing to receive this money, ring fence it, and disburse it as required by the Alliance as invoices are raised.  We are the only charity involved in the project, and they like the fact that we are a National Governing Body.

Any additional administrative burden placed on BWY by providing this assistance can be funded from the money deposited with us by the CCG.

5.     The NEC approved this arrangement. The Heads of Terms Agreement for BWY to hold these funds was sent over by the NHS commissioning manager the same day and was also accepted: -

23rd March 2017

Agreement between the British Wheel of Yoga and West London Clinical Commissioning Group, 15 Marleybone Road, London NW1 5JD.

The British Wheel of Yoga will receive the sum of £250,000 from the West London Clinical Commissioning Group for the sole purpose of funding the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance early intervention yoga trial and associated costs. This money to be held by BWY in a ring-fenced account with payments being made by invoice following approval from a nominated person at the CCG and nominated person or persons at the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance. The money shall not be used for any other purpose and the full balance shall be transferrable back to the CCG or to any subsequent account set up by the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance if so authorised by the CCG.

6.     Also, on the 23rd March 2017, Central Office generated and submitted an invoice to West London CCG which read: -

AMOUNT: £250,000

Payment of funds to be held by the British Wheel of Yoga on behalf of the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance and disbursed to fund the Early Intervention Social Prescribing Yoga trial and associated costs.

As the person who had made this last-minute arrangement possible, I as BWY Chair, and the NHS Commissioner, both signed the Heads of Terms and Invoice.

7    At this point in the process, I was travelling up to London twice a week to take part in meetings to scope out the protocol, consult with leading yoga therapists, NHS doctors, and researchers about its content, and to attend meetings with Westminster University researchers about the evaluation tools that were to be used to gather data for analysis. I did this unpaid, in a voluntary capacity, as BWY Chair acting in the interests of yoga generally, BWY members, and BWY’s charitable goals. At this time there was no expectation on my part and no suggestion that I would be paid for my role.

8.     However, that changed over the coming months when the workload mounted, and the NHS commissioner required YIHA to appoint a Project Manager and Assistant Project Manager. The records show that this was discussed and finalised with YIHA in July 2017. I was appointed to the role of Assistant Project Manager, and also asked to deliver Yoga4Health programmes to two cohorts of patients, necessitating me travelling up to London weekly to deliver the 10- week programmes. I was paid a total of £14,000 over two years, and my first invoices to the Yoga In Healthcare Alliance were submitted in October 2017 – six months after the Heads of Terms were agreed and signed.

9.     At the 10th September 2017 NEC meeting, BWY Trustees were brought up to date about the YIHA project in my Chair’s report to the meeting: -

Yoga In Healthcare Alliance (YIHA)

BWY is supporting this laudable initiative to integrate yoga into NHS care in the UK. BWY is holding £250,000 of restricted funds from the West London Clinical Commissioning Group to fund a yoga early intervention 10 week programme for 270 patients referred by their GP or via self-referral pathways for:-

·         Stress/anxiety

·         Pre-Type 2 diabetes

·         At risk for cardio-vascular disease

·         Social isolation

YIHA – run by [name redacted] under the guidance of [name redacted] and the All Party Parliamentary Group – has been established as a social enterprise and the project aims to gather data proving the efficacy of yoga as an early intervention to change health outcomes and reduce the call on NHS services. Self-care to ease the burden on the NHS is a hot topic at the moment. The report that will follow the project will be published, with the expectation that other CCGs around the UK will buy-in to this programme. YIHA will then run training programmes for yoga teachers to deliver this 10-week programme for which they will be paid by the NHS. As only properly trained yoga teachers will be eligible to train and deliver the YIHA programme, we anticipate that this will become a career opportunity for BWY teaching members in particular. A contract between West London CCG and BWY is in draft form. Once approved by the OM, Chair and Treasurer it is proposed that this is signed (the decision to hold these funds has already been taken by NEC, and the funds received, so contract signing is the formal side of that).

10   This report to NEC (and the minutes from this meeting showing that it was accepted and approved) explains how the detailed NHS contract followed some 6 months after the Heads of Terms, and that NEC delegated scrutiny of the contract to (in practice) the Treasurer and Opps Manager. By this time, BWY had been holding the £250,000 grant for nearly 6 months, and disbursing payments via the agreed invoice approval method and everything was working perfectly. The detailed contract put the Heads of Terms arrangements into legal language. While I was Chair, BWY had no problems operating this arrangement with the NHS under the agreed Heads of Terms and contract.

11   I was concerned about my shift from volunteer to being paid, and this matter was discussed by email and on the phone by myself and the Treasurer, Vice-Chair, and Operations Manager. When my first invoice to the Yoga In Healthcare Alliance was subsequently circulated around the Senior Management Team at BWY I was fully aware that I had a conflict of interest and acted immediately to address this issue in an email sent on 13th October 2017 to the people in the above roles, and to the BWY’s Financial Controller: -

Hi All

This is a problem I had not anticipated!  As you know we are holding 250k of NHS funds to pay for a yoga GP referral project for 280 patients in West London that is being organised and delivered by [name redacted] at the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance. NEC agreed that BWY could act as fundholders because the NHS would only accept a contract for this project with an organisation of the size and status of BWY, and we expect that our members will benefit in the long term from employment as yoga teachers delivering the YIHA 10-week programme.

However, scrutiny over the payments that are made from this fund happens at the level of YIHA and its board and not by BWY, as these are funds that BWY hold but cannot spend itself on any of its activities - restricted funds - and in any case it has no idea what the money is being spent on!

Since May I have been working closely and extensively on this project with [name redacted] to the extent that it was placing an unsustainable workload on myself, alongside the unpaid BWY job. YIHA in consultation with the NHS manager overseeing this project invited me to take up a paid position of Assistant Project Manager, working for YIHA and being paid 700 pounds per month for a multitude of tasks and responsibilities (I have to travel up to London every Monday to teach a class as part of the project trial and will have to do so for the whole of next year) as well as many other area of work that are not really relevant to this conversation. 

However, if YIHA payments are formally sent around for approval within BWY I clearly cannot be involved in that process and it creates a conflict of interest, and yet as Chair I should be able to have sight of and approve payments that are related to BWY activities. 

[name redacted] or[name redacted] may have a solution to this, but I was not expecting disbursements by BWY requested by YIHA to be sent around the SMT for approval, as we have no involvement in the approval process or the project. It should really in my view be a “noted transaction from the NHS restricted funds”; or something like that. If this approval process is unavoidable then I could look at asking [name redacted] to invoice for the Assistant Project Manager monthly fee and the monies could be paid to her and then she could pay me as a third party contractor. However, as YIHA is a social enterprise with little infrastructure I don’t think she will want to do that. But I can ask. At the moment there is a conflict of interest for me that needs resolving. [my emphasis]

Regards

Paul

12  Those who responded to this email took the view that the agreement between BWY and the NHS was crystal clear in the Heads of Terms agreement and that BWY was merely holding funds on behalf of YIHA - an entirely separate organisation from BWY which I was fully entitled to work for. Furthermore, the funds were classified by BWY as “agency funds” in a separate ring-fenced account, and were not considered by the Treasurer, accountants, or auditors to be part of the BWY balance sheet. It was not BWY money, as is shown in the BWY accounts from 2017 and 2018. Therefore, because BWY was disbursing money to YIHA, and I was invoicing YIHA for the work I was doing, the view was taken that there was either no conflict of interest for me to declare, or one had yet to be established. The reply to this email from one of the BWY Trustee's involved in this process illustrates this point, and additionally discourages me from seeking direct payment from [name redacted] at YIHA because it might look like a cover-up: -

Hi Paul

I did discuss this with [name redacted] yesterday. We did not think that you needed to have sight of any of the approval of YIHA

funds…. Maybe it just needs Central Office to ensure everything is legitimate.

I personally do not think [name redacted] invoicing us and then paying you, compared to just paying you is going to impress anyone.

13   I believe that the above detailed explanation of the sequence of events exonerates me of any charges of breaking the trustees code of conduct. I did not sign the NHS Heads of Terms contract at a time when I was financially benefiting from (or expecting to benefit from) the arrangement. When I was offered a paid role by the Yoga In Healthcare Alliance, myself and other Trustees were of the opinion that a conflict of interest (COI) for me did not exist and had not been established because YIHA was a separate organisation. This was also the conclusion reached by the complaints panel set up and disbanded by BWY in 2017, and the charity support organisation in the 2023 Review, stating that BWY has failed to establish that I had a COI. My emails and the responses show that I was sensitive to the risk of a COI and sought to resolve and mitigate it, as required by the Trustees Code of Practice.

14  Official guidance from the government and Charity Commission on this area focuses on managing conflicts of interest as they arise. In my case no conflict of interest was established. However, I do agree that I should have recorded more formally the appearance of a COI in relation to my work for YIHA and that this could and should have been added to minutes and discussed at a full NEC meeting. This was an oversight on my part. However, the official guidance on being a Trustee, and the 2023 review of BWY’s decision, points out that the failure to report the appearance of a COI is a low-level deviation from best practice and not an action that would merit sanctions, such as expulsion. Instead, trustees would be reminded of best practice. The details I present above also show that I relied on advice from NEC members and staff, as trustees must, and should not have been singled out for blame when I had taken such efforts to be open and honest about the situation.

Thank you

Paul Fox

January 2024