New PRCA-UK “Standards” Cmte Chair and Vice Chair Abruptly Leave Post

In a massive PRCA transparency breach that signals serious internal ethics / compliance problems, two very recently appointed and publicly announced “Chair” and “Vice Chair” officials of the most powerful ethics “enforcement” arm of the Public Relations & Communications Association (PRCA) have exited their post – with no public explanation and no announcement by the PRCA… all after an upbeat, public announcement showcasing both experts as new co-leaders, only some four months ago.

Pete Baxter and Alison White were announced as Chair and Co-Chair, respectively, of the PRCA Standards Committee just this past spring.

Now, they’re gone.

Neither PRWeek nor PRovoke has picked up the story, underscoring what I’ve personally observed for years now is a secretive “code” between certain favored PR industry figures and the larger trade press, to cover — or bury — certain topics.

Arguably more powerful than the PRCA Management Board itself, the PRCA Standards Committee wields powers to investigate and adjudicate complaints against PRCA members (at least those complaints that they will acknowledge and not stonewall), including the ability to expel members publicly… essentially upending careers, even if a PRCA member is wrongfully accused or subjected to a political witch hunt.

News Release / PRCA Website: https://prca-uk.prezly.com/prca-appoints-pete-baxter-as-chair-and-alison-white-as-vice-chair-of-standards-committee?preview=true

When the PRCA posted the announcement on LinkedIn to welcome Mr. Baxter and Ms. White last spring, I responded to the post, inquiring about who precisely was running the two generic, nameless / faceless e-mail addresses involved in PRCA “Complaints” and “Standards” operations, to which I had pursued an inquiry weeks earlier but never received a response:

LinkedIn post, below: https://lnkd.in/p/eREmndmP

I later received a highly non-responsive e-mail from a PRCA staff member, bordering on terse.

When I tried to follow back up with additional efforts to get answers to my earlier-posed questions that were ignored, the PRCA staff member never responded to me again. (Last week, I saw that this staff person has now also left the PRCA altogether, which is a shame, as I believe this person is actually a good and decent professional… who simply may have been placed under unfair and undue internal pressure.)

EMAIL EXCERPTS:

Soon after this continued non-response, I noticed that Mr. Baxter was dropped mid-summer from the PRCA website, without announcement, leading me to believe he abruptly resigned for some reason.

When I inquired about it, no one would tell me what happened.

Repeated attempts on my part throughout summer 2026 to get questions answered and receive status updates were delayed for months… and then ignored altogether.

In more recent weeks, I registered written concerns to PRCA Leadership (Board Chair Kirsty Leighton and CEO Sarah Waddington) that the PRCA Standards Committee was out of compliance with the PRCA’s own bylaws (known in the U.K. as “bye-laws”), as instituted in late 2023, due to:

1) short-staffing of the Standards Committee, below the bye-laws-mandated five persons, and

2) no non-white professionals serving on the committee (since its inception and through August 2026, the PRCA Standards Committee was only composed of white people, clearly violating a standing mandate for diversity and inclusion).  

EMAIL EXCERPTS, from me to PRCA officials, which have been ignored:

AUGUST 3, 2026:

AUGUST 17, 2026:

I have been struck that the PRCA Standards Committee is allowed to have up to 15 members, per bye-laws, yet PRCA CEO Sarah Waddington apparently insists on keeping its composition down to the bare-minimum, of five. In fact, more than five people have never composed this Committee, since its inception in 2024.

I never received any response to my e-mails, above… not even an acknowledgement. 

I could not send it through to the Standards Committee directly, because the PRCA staff person assigned to the Committee was already stonewalling my inquiries that had been made months earlier – also with no reply or even an acknowledgement.

Further, I soon discovered that the PRCA was listing actual PRCA Board of Management personnel on their website who already had been “terminated’ as per PRCA filings to Companies House. 

When I separately inquired on that matter, those queries were ignored, too.

By September 1, 2026, I finally reached out to PRCA legal counsel of record with Lewis Silkin LLP, Lucy Lewis, who is the attorney for Lewis Silkin who personally advised on the matter of placing the late PRCA Director General Francis Ingham under “investigation,” on loose and unsubstantiated accusations that over more than four months he was never allowed to fully know, even after he already was in the hospital and essentially incapacitated, under impacts of extreme emotional torture and mental distress.

To my amazement, Ms. Lewis even stonewalled me, too, leading me to believe that NO ONE is adhering to even the most basic professional protocols, perhaps under direct advice by Lewis Silkin for PRCA leaders to violate the PRCA’s own Code of Conduct if they must, in order to avoid me.

I never received any update on the PRCA Standards Committee situation, amid an absolute morass of additional ongoing compliance problems in the PRCA.

Every time I tried to e-mail CEO Sarah Waddington, I kept receiving Out of Office replies, sometimes of a most bizarre nature (…a “beekeeping course”???). 

In each OOO, CEO Waddington’s message promised to reply to me later, but not once has she done so.

28 July 2026:

17 August 2026:

25 September 2026:

In this Sarah Waddington OOO, she announced she was at the PRCA Fellows Luncheon, which she accidentally-on-purpose “forgot” (?) to invite me to, although I’m a Fellow myself:

Over this past weekend, I re-checked the PRCA Standards Committee website page, and it appears Team Waddington (very quietly) added two new members, including one non-white professional — so I at least took heart that they followed my advice on that point, even if they couldn’t bring themselves to acknowledge my own efforts to bring this issue to light:

The new PRCA Standards “Chair” — Mr. Heath — is a gentleman with deep political connections as a Liberal Democrat:

While I respect everyone’s right to hold whatever political beliefs they like, I must footnote that CEO Sarah Waddington has already made it abundantly clear that anyone with Conservative viewpoints are essentially unwelcomed at the PRCA.

Apparently taking delight in alarming people with her strident rhetoric, Sarah Waddington has declared war on the “right wing” and — by all appearances — on anyone who might dare utter one word sounding even Conservative-leaning:

As a moderate U.S. conservative myself, I feel targeted.

I am forced to ask, is there even one person on the PRCA Standards Committee who is Conservative, too? Or even an Independent? Has Team Waddington turned the PRCA into an anti-Conservative fascist regime?

The new members of the PRCA Standards Committee have not been announced or posted on PRCA social media that I’ve been able to see – probably on the off-chance that more protest resignations may potentially be forthcoming (although long-overdue clarity from the PRCA is welcomed).

After all, would you want to be seen publicly on the “Standards” Committee of a trade body that is clearly receiving excessive — and excessively well-documented — complaints against a leadership who are not abiding by their own bylaws / bye-laws and policies… or with this degree of serious financial problems?…

Of course, one festering issue with the now-current five-person line up on the Standards Committee is that I had already disclosed months ago that I planned to register a complaint against a specific firm that actually is already affiliated on the PRCA Standards Committee itself by one of the pre-existing Committee members.

That fact means this person would have to recuse themselves in the matter, thus bringing the Standards body back down to only four people and, thus, (again) in violation of PRCA bye-law compliance, so as to be rendered non-convenable.

See how this works???

It’s fairly clear what’s going on here, on the Sarah Waddington / Sarah Scholefield unfit-for-purpose “Governance” merry-go-round.

To boot, Sarah Waddington has apparently taken to the airwaves this year, engaging in months-long trolling campaigns against Sir Martin Sorrell, while preemptively claiming she herself has been “stalked” and is being “trolled” by more than one individual — including someone (???) in the U.S. (I’m a U.S. citizen based in the States.)

Sarah Waddington’s “victim-card” rhetoric appears clear to me to be an accountability-deflection tactic.

Perhaps this sleight-of-hand was clever strategy (albeit unethical) four or five years ago. But now, we’ve become wise to it.

I challenge CEO Waddington to produce the “police report” she claims she filed against her female “stalker” from years ago, in a matter she further claims in this clip from February 2026 that U.K. Police “cocked up,” allegedly depriving CEO Waddington and her equally long-suffering husband that mystical restraining order she spoke of, here:

I don’t believe I should have to tell anyone in the PR industry who’s actually paying attention that things have gone out of control with two of the most prominent PR membership bodies on either side of the Atlantic – PRSA (U.S.) and the PRCA (U.K.).

For example, my recent government records requests in the U.S. turned up e-mails between two current PRSA National leaders — including current PRSA National Chair Heide Harrell and her mentor / brain trust, Mickey Nall — both making vile remarks and words of physical threats against a female PRSA Assembly voting delegate in 2024, who was conjectured possibly to question Ms. Harrell’s own ethics:

Talk about a mess!

In fact, I wouldn’t doubt that these two PR industry associations — the two largest in the world, mind you — are possibly trading notes on coordinated ways to continue stonewalling, demonizing, and retaliating against me, personally (or even other aims, potentially). I doubt it would be the first time.

What a sad state of affairs this situation is.

Yes, this industry is supposed to be “built on trust.”

But it certainly isn’t supposed to be built on gaslighting:

Trust disintegrates when the keys to the kingdom are left in the hands of self-serving charlatans.

I hope these groups sort themselves out, but in the PRCA’s case, they’ve had nearly four years since their coordinated anti-Ingham jihad to do precisely that.

Apparently, it didn’t take. In fact, things are now 10 times worse.

Mary Beth West, APR, FPRCA, has served on the front lines to root out ethics violations in the PR industry, particularly within PR industry associations that often are abused as veiled front groups by certain mega-conglomerate PR firms representing rogue nations / regimes and undisclosed, unsavory client interests — some known to be foreign adversaries to the U.K. and the U.S.