The Church Times reports: Safeguarding body consults on new national organisation. Curiously, there is not (yet?) any Church of England official press release. Digging down into the Safeguarding section of the CofE website, I eventually found this page:
New Safeguarding Authority Design Consultation which in turn leads to these pages
As the first page explains:
In a joint message for the consultation, the Independent Executive Chair, Dame Christine Ryan, and the Deputy Lead Bishop for Safeguarding, Bishop Joanne Grenfell, write:
“Following General Synod’s overwhelming support for our strategic plans to rebuild trust and deliver professional, independent safeguarding across the Church, the work to translate that vision into a detailed, structured programme of change is well underway.
“At the heart of these reforms is the creation of a new national safeguarding organisation that will operate independently of Church hierarchy, governed by a majority-independent Board. This consultation seeks your views on the detailed design of this organisation, referred to in the consultation as the “Authority”.
“Whether you are a survivor, a parish volunteer, a safeguarding professional, a Church officer, or a member of the wider public, your perspective will help us refine these proposals. Your feedback and viewpoints are essential and will help ensure the proposals are robust, sustainable, and fit for purpose.”
And there is further information after that, and continuing on the second page.
I encourage all TA readers to study these proposals.
Are the proposals totally in line with the recommendations of the IICSA report? If not, then as the National Church, we are still hiding from our basic responsibilities and putting our institutional convenience above all else.
Your church can be such an important part of your life especially if like me your live in Germany and there is no alternative to the one Anglican Church. I am not Gay but I am only a practising Christian because of a Gay Anglican priest. I was a member of Our Church Council and when it came to “Living in Love and Faith” I wanted to propose a motion. At first this was enthusiastically received but later on I was forbidden from even proposing it. A month later I received a severely abusive letter from one of the priests… Read more »
I’m so sorry about your dreadful experience, David. Bullying is a real problem in the C of E, and it’s seldom that anything is done about it.
David, Like Janet I too am very sorry about your dreadful experience which continues to haunt you. Janet describes it as bullying and by doing that puts her finger on a pretty central part of the problem with Safeguarding in the COf E because in most organisations bullying in the first instance is seen as an HR problem. It is only crosses over into safeguarding when the person being bullied is caused serious harm – which of course it sounds as though you were. But then in other organisations safeguarding investigations work alongside HR and if necessary criminal processes. I… Read more »
Seems like very bad procedure. You surely have a right to put your point of view to the Council. Can you not get higher authority to remind your colleagues that?
I am not a Gay man so before proposing this motion I consulted a very senior lesbian Anglican cleric. She suggested some amendments that I incorporated and she strongly approved of the motion so I felt confident to go ahead. But the priest in charge of my Anglican parish refused to put the text on the agenda. It didn’t seem viable to talk about a text that ordinary council members hadn’t seen.So I backed down and didn’t attend the meeting. But one month later I received a seriously abusive letter from one of the other priests which threatened me and… Read more »
I’ve heard similar tales of the Diocese in Europe. It’s a tragedy that Clive Billenness, who represented that diocese on General Synod and was a leading campaigner against bullying, was taken from us early.
I think it should be put to them that it’s their duty to instruct their priests-in-charge to conduct meetings according to standing orders. That’s a very important duty
David, I agree wholeheartedly with your last two lines.
I have spent the last six years in supporting a friend in a sexual allegation by a chorister. My friend was not in the country when it was claimed the only three incidents took place. From clergy and organisations who have been appealed to in those years they all say, “we cannot intervene in safeguarding procedures”.
What a cover up!
David, there is no excuse for unkindness and bullying behaviour- especially so in a church. I am also sorry to hear of your anxiety and depression.
I do fear however that our society has, through divisiveness and entrenched positions on controversial matters, created multiple problems of increasing complexity. Unfortunately we have an increase in “damaged” people and an increase in people prepared to inflict damage on others. The church, wrongly, appears to mirror society when it should be exemplary in it witness and modelling.
Unfortunately, having read Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’, it creeps me out that this new body is referring to itself as ‘The Authority’.
Having read through the material I am seriously unimpressed.
I fear that this will result in an expensive bureaucratic monster that has given itself too much to do, and will get bogged down in process. It certainly does not inspire confidence that it does not even explain what is meant by ‘majority-independent’. Is it simple majority? Two-thirds majority? Who chairs & who holds casting vote in a tie (independent or church)? Etc. Etc.
And why does the new design see the way forward as creating this bureaucratic monster instead of looking at outsourcing safeguarding to the local statutory agencies? Or does the way clergy are employed and the lack of comparable HR departments make this too difficult?
The present suggestion does seem a little akin to sowing a nice crop of dragon’s teeth – will a new city be built once the majority of warriors have killed each other?
I thought most organisations dealt with their own complaints, contacting statutory agencies where necessary or for advice by Diocese or Parish level safeguarding. Local government statutory agencies have neither the people numbers nor money to take on the role for the CofE. But one big issue remains – most clergy are not considered employed, so no HR departments for them. Without change here is it possible to move forward?