Updated 20 August
The letter reported below was discussed in this article dated 12 August, from Surviving Church: Martin Sewell writes further to the Charity Commission about Safeguarding failures.
We have reported previously on the issue of whether the Independent Safeguarding Board is indeed an independent body in any meaningful sense. See below for links to earlier articles.
Martin Sewell has written a Letter to the Charity Commission setting out in comprehensive detail (13 pages) the relationship between the Archbishops’ Council and the Independent Safeguarding Board. This has now been copied to the Secretary General (William Nye) and all members of the Council.
It is well worth taking the time to read the whole letter, which urges the Charity Commission to investigate further the operations of the Archbishops’ Council. The letter also notes (para 34):
I am sharing this letter with some aggrieved parties and think you will see the full extent of the problem when those who have written to me share their stories with you on a private and confidential basis. I am inviting them to do so, so that you can better understand the widespread and deep malaise of which Archbishops’ Council has long been aware, but as yet has been indecisive or evasive in its response.
Previous articles (which include links to many of the documents mentioned in the letter):
Ref: Martin Sewell’s Letter to the Charity Commission regarding the Archbishops’ Council:
“2 What is especially concerning is that…there was no recognition of error…”
That pathological inability to admit wrongdoing within the Archbishops’ Council will be the Church of England’s undoing – unless ‘root and branch’ change takes place.
The Charity Commission can do much to right the wrongs. The Supreme Head of the Church of England – Her Majesty – can do more.
Her Majesty, who, incidentally, is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England not the Supreme Head, a title that was felt in Elizabeth I’s time to be more appropriately applied to Jesus, has only titular powers over the C of E. Her relation to the ABC may be likened to her relation to her PM, the right and duty to be consulted, to encourage and to warn. These she may already be doing, though, quite rightly, we shall not know. I am not sure what is the ‘more’ that you envisage.
A brave, laudable and necessary attempt to speak truth to power. But will power listen?
I hope that the Charity Commission will take note and act appropriately, but all previous experience suggests that the Archbishops’ Council, advised by their ruinously expensive reputational management consultants, will focus primarily on just that, managing their reputation, whilst the needs of victims, and for proper process, will pick up the scraps at best.
Although I have general knowledge of what has happened, I don’t have access to any detailed chronology which would stretch back far beyond the list of TA links helpfully provided above. To engage the Charity Commission’s involvement, I suggest, will require a bullet-point list in chronological order of events which breached charity law, or the standard of conduct expected of a charity. Just two examples would be the creation of a core group which included people with the most obvious, indeed blatant, conflict of interests, subsequently required to stand down, and the creation and use of the ‘risk assessment’ for… Read more »
This is not just a brave, laudable and necessary attempt to speak truth to power. Power already knows the truth. The issue is about justice and injustice. It is a brave, laudable and necessary attempt to make just the unjust.
The Percy case is the occasion for the letter, but the failure of governance and lack of due diligence exercised by General Synod is a much more serious and long lasting area of concern.
It was presumably obvious from the outset that no body part of or newly constituted by the Church of England could fulfil the intended remit without being granted extraordinary legal powers. It would be necessary to be able to compel testimony, for example, on pain of contempt of court or some such sanction, possibly by being constituted as an ecclesiastical court by Measure. There appears to have been no appetite for such proceedings, and so the scope of the Board was always going to be limited. In particular, it was never going to have an effective power to carry out… Read more »
I do hope Unreliable Narrator will be making these important points directly to the Charity Commission
And Rowland Wateridge:
“To engage the Charity Commission’s involvement, I suggest, will require a bullet-point list in chronological order of events which breached charity law, or the standard of conduct expected of a charity. Just two examples would be the creation of a core group which included people with the most obvious, indeed blatant, conflict of interests, subsequently required to stand down, and the creation and use of the ‘risk assessment’ for the purposes of a CDM….”
Unfortunately, I don’t think that getting things wrong rises to the level of misconduct, unless you took the view that no reasonable group of trustees could possibly have thought this application of their funds was going to advance their charitable purposes.
I referred specifically to breaches of charity law and conduct falling below the standard expected of a charity. Those cannot be categorised as simply “getting things wrong”. It would be absurd to suggest that the Charity Commission is only concerned with fiduciary duties.
So are you saying that the AC has created and named the Independent Safeguarding Board, and referred to that independence during and after the IICSA enquiry, whilst knowing all along that it would not, and could not, be independent in any meaningful sense of the word? Is that not the worst kind of deliberate deception?
Yes to the first part. As to the second, I leave that to the reader.
This is an acutely interesting and well-developed set of comments.
It is as bad as you suspect, and in fact much worse. Some of us tried to point all of this out politely, then firmly, and finally bluntly. But such is the culture of spin and evasion, the powers that be just keep on repeating “it’s independent” as though the Dalek-Speak will eventually be accepted. This sad debacle reveals itself for what it is. Most managers have no idea of how to proceed or progress CofE safeguarding and it has now been so piecemeal it is unworkable. If this was a plane you’d never ever board. The safety record of… Read more »
Professor Martyn Percy – a committed advocate for justice in the Bishop of Chichester George Bell scandal – has described Church of England Safeguarding thus: “If this was a plane, you’d never ever board” The Archbishops’ Council is now being reported to the Charities Commission by General Synod member Martin Sewell, who urges an investigation into the Council’s Independent Safeguarding Board [ISB] – for breach of charity law and the standards expected of a charity. “What is especially concerning is that there was no recognition of error”, states Mr Sewell in his letter to the Commission. The hierarchy at Chichester… Read more »
Church Times – Letters Position of the Independent Safeguarding Board From the Revd Sam Maginnis Sir, — The recent letter from Martin Sewell to the Charity Commission (published on the Thinking Anglicans blog on 10 August; News, 12 August) raises serious issues of concern surrounding the Independent Safeguarding Board’s (ISB’s) review of the Christ Church/Martyn Percy case: in particular, whether the ISB is competent to carry out this complex task and whether it actually has legal standing to operate independently from the Archbishops’ Council. Mr Sewell reports that no action has been taken by the Council to address or even… Read more »
The ISB website has now been set up. I won’t attempt to summarise it here, but simply note that its Privacy Policy describes it as an “unincorporated” body.