Editor’s note: The college at Oxford is, of course, Christ Church and not Christchurch. I have not corrected this error in the ISB’s statement.
The website of the Church of England’s Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) was finally launched yesterday.
Today the ISB has published a statement saying that it was pausing its review into the quality of earlier safeguarding investigations at Christ Church. This is copied below.
Christchurch review
A statement from the ISB
The ISB has upon invitation from the Diocese of Oxford and the Archbishops Council agreed to undertake a review into the quality of earlier safeguarding investigations at Christchurch. A copy of the published TOR is available here. A call for evidence has gone out and a timetable published. To date ISB has not started a qualitative review of the submitted evidence. The current constitution of the ISB, with the Chair currently stood down, places considerable additional capacity restraints on the limited resources of the ISB. The wider ISB work undertaken to date is in part set out in the newly launched website.
The question of independence is quite rightly a regular challenge to the ISB. The ISB does not currently operate as a stand-alone separate legal entity and this is something actively under consideration ahead of embarking upon the second phase of the ISB’s work in developing a pathway to embedding long lasting independent scrutiny and oversight of safeguarding within the COE.
The ISB is aware that other independent Reviews into Christ Church have been concluded and as such the ISB wishes to analyse those reviews to determine whether the ISB can usefully add to the body of independent work completed to date when weighed against the ISB’s finite resources and its current workload particularly directed towards the survivor community.
For these reasons the ISB has decided to pause the work on the Review pending consideration of other ISB priorities and the extent to which the ISB can usefully add to the work carried out by others and recommendations made.
One of the very clear functions of the ISB is to hold the COE to account for implementation of safeguarding best practice. To the extent the ISB endorses the recommendations made independently by other responsible bodies relating to Christ Church, they will seek assurance that those recommendations are implemented.
Survivor Advocate
Independent Safeguarding Board
[The review’s terms of reference are attached to the statement.]
The inability of the ISB to spell the name of Christ Church really sums up all you need to know about the ISB.
Something written by an adult. That’s progress and good to see.
Whoever wrote the original brief though, that’s a different story. It promised a forensic review but then the steps set out don’t come close to attaining forensic standards of work. It’s hard to have confidence in any piece of work which is so obviously oversold.
Standing this work down is sensible. Hopefully it never resumes under anything like these terms of reference.
The statement issued by the ISB posted on its belatedly-launched website states that it “has decided to pause the work on the [Christ Church] Review pending consideration of other ISB priorities and the extent to which the ISB can usefully add to the work carried out by others and recommendations made.” This is undoubtedly a sensible decision, but there is surely another reason for the pause, not mentioned in the statement. Paragraph 4.10 of the Terms of Reference for the Christ Church Review (appended to the statement) states: “The report will be written and published by the ISB’s 3 members,… Read more »
I’m curious to know how many staff the ISB employ (if any) because given the importance of safeguarding I do wonder if they have the time and personnel to address the challenges they may face? Also, if they want to present as ‘independent’ I question the use of Church House as their contact address. It’s relatively harmless and administrative in itself, but appearances matter, and ISB struggles to be trusted as truly independent, so in its own best interests (and the trust of survivors etc) I do wonder if they should take steps to distance the Board as much as… Read more »
They are all part timers, as they keep reminding us. I believe Jasvinder and Steve are both contracted for just two days per week. Jas particularly has dozens of other interests ( most of her Twitter feed is other interests, next to nothing on safeguarding). I do not believe the ISB has made any comment on Past Cases Review, or IICSA ( presumably both came out on days they not getting paid to be ISB)
They are not independent as yesterday’s statement makes abundantly clear
As Graham says, the three Board members are all part-timers. As the website tells us, they are “supported by one member of staff” who will be “the first point of contact for all ISB related queries.” She is Niamh Meehan, titled “Project Officer and Administrator” and described as “an experienced senior administrator with project delivery experience, from a background in supporting complex safeguarding arrangements and the staff who undertake it.” Since the ToR for the ISB (on the website) state, on page 6, that the ISB “is funded by the Archbishops’ Council,” and since the Board has said (in answer… Read more »
This is all a car crash that some of us identified back in April when the ISB members were persuaded to try and help the Church out of a hole: so much has gone wrong in the Oxford scandal that finding someone untainted by direct allegation or implication was becoming increasingly problematic and so the poisoned chalice was handed to the ISB members who perhaps did not undertake enough due diligence before accepting the brief. Susannah, having the Admin in Church House was always a problem when sensitive critical survivor data was coming through the Church House information systems and… Read more »
“General Synod was misled. Doubtless mostly it was inadvertent innocent misrepresentation by people who trusted their advisors – but should not those advisors have some explaining to do?” Other than the largest organisations, few have the expertise to select and manage advisers to the highest standards. I don’t know how the Church of England does it, but I would recommend hiring specialist consultants to procure advisers and to periodically help review their performance. The advisers may, or may not, have explaining to do but it depends on their terms of reference. It’s entirely possible that advisers have, in fact, done… Read more »
I’m on a self-imposed retreat from TA (I’m fed up of the same old same old from quasi-trolls who seem not to think or listen) but I happened to look just now and must break my silence over this. Yet more consultants and advisers – what a marvellous idea. And a tranche of administrators to keep them in disorder. I have a nagging suspicion, though, that we’d get more sense and wisdom from Eric in the pub, Dolly in the corner shop, and the kids at the Junior School (if a child can choose a pope …). Now back to… Read more »
Sadly there are Church specific aspects here which weren’t part of the ISB review, which should be of particular concern to the Church of England – for example the way in which parallel processes in the Church machinery were engaged (CDM, safeguarding) and whether this was problematic and what to do about it in future if it was (surely pertinent to the CDM review and therefore somewhat urgent). Also whether the statements made by Church bodies at various times were accurate and adequate. The role of advisers in influencing process and communication should also be a concern – whether there… Read more »