Press release from Lambeth Palace:
Lambeth Palace publishes its Independent Safeguarding Audit from SCIE
The independent audit by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) of Lambeth Palace’s safeguarding arrangements has been published today.
The audit, which was conducted in March 2022, involved reviewing a wide range of documentation as well as talking to staff members and focus groups. The purpose was to gain a greater understanding of the policies and culture of safeguarding that exists at Lambeth Palace, the office and residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The SCIE audit was part of a national safeguarding audit programme covering Church of England dioceses, cathedrals and palaces, which is now complete. This national programme seeks to support safeguarding improvements across governance and leadership, organisational culture, policies and practice guidance, case-work, responsiveness to (and support of) victims and survivors of abuse, and recruitment and training, ensuring that all offices have the best possible practice in place….
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The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) Independent Safeguarding Audit of Lambeth Palace can be read in full here: Independent Safeguarding Audit of Lambeth Palace
Lambeth Palace will be producing an action plan in response to the SCIE audit and the Independent Safeguarding Board report ‘Don’t Panic – Be Pastoral’, as well as the recommendations of the recent Church of England-wide Past Cases Review 2 project, in which Lambeth Palace participated. This will be published in due course.
In January Bishopthorpe Palace published its own Independent Safeguarding Audit from SCIE which can be found here.
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…The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Justin Welby, said: “I want to thank the SCIE team for this thorough, constructive and helpful report. Safeguarding must be central to the life of the Church, and we are committed to striving for the highest possible standards at Lambeth Palace. We welcome the encouragement and, quite rightly, the challenge from SCIE to continue our ongoing learning and improvement of safeguarding practices.
“I am adamant that this report must underpin and strengthen our continuing efforts to ensure that Lambeth Palace treats safeguarding as a top priority, and I look forward to working with colleagues to make sure that happens. I also want to acknowledge and give my personal thanks and gratitude to the many survivors and victims who engaged in this valuable process. Your voices and experience are essential in our ongoing work to ensure the Church is a safer place for all.”
The Revd Ijeoma Ajibade, Chief of Staff to the Archbishop of Canterbury, said: “I am grateful to the SCIE team for acknowledging the many positive changes that have been made to Lambeth Palace’s safeguarding arrangements, while also challenging us to continue improving in some areas. The report engages with the complexity of the devolved structures of the Church of England, while acknowledging the scope of the Archbishop’s leadership role within those structures – and we are grateful for its informed analysis and constructive recommendations.
“Prior to the SCIE audit, Lambeth Palace conducted its own internal safeguarding review and identified several areas where more work was needed. These included allocating more staff resource to safeguarding, embedding safeguarding more fully into the work of the senior leadership team, and greater collaboration between Lambeth Palace and Bishopthorpe. We have already begun to make progress on these areas – and we are encouraged that the SCIE report have affirmed the need to continue our work in these areas, as well as highlighting others for us to take forward. We will be publishing an action plan in due course, to ensure we are transparent and accountable for the sustained and consistent action we are taking.”
The Social Care Institute for Excellence’s CEO Kathryn Smith said: “Lambeth Palace and the role of Archbishop of Canterbury are critical in progressing safeguarding across the Church of England, but the role is not straightforward given the structure of the Church. Pointers in the audit report published today are aimed at clarifying, as well as strengthening the role. I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to this audit, especially the many victims and survivors of abuse who generously shared their experiences, which will often had had an emotional cost.”
I suffered what most people would regard as fairly minor abuse as a child. But it was very serious to me. All I wanted was to write to my abuser but I didn’t have his address. I simply wanted my letter delivered that was all. I didn’t even want his address. But the Lambeth Palace bureaucracy simply messed me around and this felt almost as bad as the original abuse. Eventually a bishop intervened on my behalf and the issue was sorted in days to my great relief. This was a few years ago and I hope things have improved… Read more »
Shocking if unsurprising
A lot to plough through. I have tweeted various sections 8.1.17 The auditors judged that there have been recent improvements in safeguarding culture and awareness in the Palace. Perceptions of a lack of consistency and follow- through in public statements and undertakings made by the Archbishop have undermined his efforts to establish a consistently safe culture across the whole Church. 8.1.18 Previous efforts by Lambeth Palace to engage with survivors have been insufficiently thoughtful and thought through. 2.2.3 The majority recounted negative experiences, some of which were specific to Lambeth, others more general in relation to the Church and its processes. People described not being listened to, feeling… Read more »
Damning: 6.4.13 Record-keeping arrangements have historically been poor, reflecting an inadequate understanding of both legal requirements and good practice. The absence of a single, consistent approach to safeguarding responses, and the fact that there was no ‘safeguarding’ label for safeguarding-related correspondence, means that records are still not easily searchable, and have not been consistently stored. Capacity to address these historic problems is limited. These issues are now beginning to be addressed, under the guidance of the IGO. There has been insufficient emphasis on ‘getting it right’ for victims and survivors of abuse Missteps: 7.2.20 The auditors note the absence of independent, experienced, and expert safeguarding… Read more »
There are no words to describe how shocking this report is. If it had been addressed to any private or public sector organisation, the consequences would be seismic. There are too many strands for any one post on TA to do justice. Wearing my senior recruiting hat, there is simply no excuse for not following safeguarding protocols (report 6.3.12). And the link to the Makin Review is a grim warning of what is to come there (report 7.6.12). I have recently read the Riot Act to my PCC to ensure that not only are we compliant, but also that we ‘get it.’ A deadline… Read more »
I’m afraid I’m not convinced that the Church of England “gets it”. As a member of our Church Council I went through the training but was not at all impressed. It seemed to me that it stated the obvious combined with an ineffective box ticking exercise. Sexual abuse of children is a terrible abuse of power but it is not the only abuse. Adults can be bullied and abused as well. Not doing enough to welcome outsiders is also also abuse and contrary to our clear biblical duty. The Church of England is too often a haven for the prosperous… Read more »
I will restrict myself to two observations, one positive, one not so.
1. The present (March 2022) LPSO has clearly had a very positive impact which should be acknowledged.
2. There are job descriptions for all the senior people and the newer contain a section on safeguarding. Erm, that’s wrong. There is no job description listed (page 83) for the Archbishop of Canterbury himself and therefore presumably no safeguarding section within it. The review fails to identify that this is a lacuna. The review was independent, but was it fearless?
Was it fearless ? Well, the fact that Lambeth fought over its content for nine months, got lawyers involved, and therefore presumably had some of its content removed, shows the pressure SCIE was under. Goodness knows ( who will leak it please…..?) what the original, undiluted report looked like.
I do believe SCIE pushed as hard as they can, but reputation management fought back, and we do not have the criticism warts and all.
I wondered why it took a year between the review and release. That explains a lot, thank you.
Noteworthy is not only the nine months delay while, as Graham asserts (no doubt with inside knowledge or from information provided by a whistleblower), Lambeth and its lawyers ‘fought over the content’ of the report, but the further one month delay between the date of the ‘Foreword from SCIE’—30 January 2023—and the date of publication: 28 February 2023. Is it being too cynical to suggest that publication was deliberately held back until after the February meeting of General Synod?
It was fearless enough to be damning of both Lambeth Palace and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
As a survivor who has had dealings with both over my complaint, I have to say the report accurately reflects my abysmal experience.
This report justifies the decision of myself and 50 colleagues with long experience of CofE Safeguarding failure to write to the Charity Commission expressing no confidence in the leadership.
This is not a personal criticism: the Archangel Gabriel could not make our current system work, as this report makes clear.
“ the continuing lack of clear structures in the Church for raising and addressing historic grievances about responses to knowledge of abuse and to survivors, can present real and pressing problems in terms of addressing past injustices and in rebuilding destroyed lives.’
Anglican Futures has published a critique:
https://www.anglicanfutures.org/post/unbelievable
Premier Christian News has published this report:
https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/welby-s-attempts-to-create-safe-c-ofe-culture-undermined-through-lack-of-consistency-says-audit
The Church Times report is here
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/3-march/news/uk/abuse-survivors-unhappy-with-their-treatment-by-lambeth-palace-audit-finds
House of Survivors reflects that if this were a report on a school, Lambeth Palace would be put into special measures. Where is the accountability?
https://houseofsurvivors.org/2023/03/01/independent-safeguarding-audit-of-lambeth-palace/
Meditation on the Lambeth Palace SCIE report There should be a Sunday like the Safeguarding Sunday when no children attend church. All families stay away from the Church to signal clearly that no family wants their child to be among future generations of survivors to signal disapproval of the Church of England’s processes & responses to survivors no family wants their child to undergo the Church’s reabusive cruel processes Just one Sunday a year the Church would wake up and see what it looked like to be a childless church, without children, without families, without young people the Church would… Read more »
From the ISB
https://independent-safeguarding.org/response-to-scie-report-on-safeguarding-practices-into-lambeth-palace-by-jasvinder-sanghera-cbe-survivor-advocate-2nd-march-2023/
“our work, which now involves accepting cases for independent reviews”
To be clear, is the ISB proposing to accept requests, other than from the Church leadership itself?
…because if it is to be truly independent, reviews should not only be those which the Church leadership chooses; nor should the organisation set the parameters for any review (note the time-frame they were told to follow in the Christ Church case).
The church leadership must not in any way be filtering which cases they want reviewed, nor defining the remit or the limits of such reviews.
Wondering what, if anything, it says that comments on the retirements of two bishops total at present 16; on a paper by CEEC recommending writing to bishops stands at 249; and on the appalling state of Lambeth Palace’s practices regarding Safeguarding (including those of the Archbishop of Canterbury) number 19. That’s not a good look. I imagine that ‘HQ’ might be rather relieved at the lack of fury.
Gilo- In passing, for many of us no children in church is already the norm!
A fair comment, but perhaps part of the reason is that those numerous comments represent a vigorous discussion between different points of view. Presumably there is unanimity on the awfulness of this particular situation.
Surviving Church has published this
https://survivingchurch.org/2023/03/03/trying-to-be-heard-how-lambeth-palace-has-let-down-the-abused-in-their-search-for-justice/
If SCIE thinks there has been an improvement in LP they must be seriously deluded. Having dealt with LP some years ago and again, right now, the response, if anything is worse. The safeguarding officer is downright rude, staff are apathetic and the whole process is emotionally costly and abusive. Welby’s performance at Synod bordered on extremely concerning, his dry eyed weeping is worrying and in my line of work often seen as some form of age related mental degeneration.
The Times has published this article:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/archbishops-aide-criticised-for-handling-of-church-of-england-sex-abuse-allegations-cmjgkrrgr
A useful way of looking at institutional arrangements for safeguarding is through the lens of GDPR. The GDPR requires an organisation to articulate the purposes for which it is holding personal data, and everything else falls into place from that understanding. The audit seems to have missed the opportunity to ask the question, since (very sensitive) personal data is integral to handling safeguarding issues. A functional organisation should be able to explain what functions it expects to carry out with with respect to safeguarding; what personal data it requires to execute those functions; to state its policy about the collection,… Read more »