Professional associations are member organisations comprising practitioners in a profession. This report provides theory-driven standards of excellence as recommended benchmarks, cautionary guidance, and action points for associations and other bodies to use to assess, improve and promote their effectiveness in their roles.

The report answers the most difficult in a series of questions regarding Professional associations:

• ‘What is the value of professional associations to the good that professions do?’
• ‘And what do professional associations achieve that state regulation or leaving it to the market alone could not?’

Governments have a clear interest in answers to these questions. The interest of governments is in the work of professional associations that directly and indirectly protects consumers of professional services and supports the advancement of that profession as a whole. This protection is clearest in association standard setting and continuing training for competent, productive, ethical and empathic professional service delivery. It is also clear in professional associations’ work to deal with consumer complaints and discipline their members. Through a robust association – and this report investigates what this means - consumers get better advice and service, and government is saved from the expense and distraction of professional regulation and discipline. This saving may be partial because of co-regulation with government, but it is often the case that professional associations discipline the most serious cases and as this report shows, can be very tough on fellow-professionals.

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This report was commissioned by the Professional Standards Councils (PSC), which is a statutory regulator of professional associations and through them, of professions. The report is part of a three- year program of research on the condition and challenges of modern professions, funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, with the PSC and other organisations. With researchers from four Universities, the program of research was conducted out of the Centre for Law Markets and Regulation at UNSW Law.