Minutes of meetings of the House of Bishops of the Church of England are now available online; they are towards the bottom of the page. This is announced in the answer to a question at next week’s meeting of General Synod. I have copied the question and answer below.
The Revd Andrew Atherstone (Oxford) to ask the Chair of the House of Bishops:
Q153 In May 2024, the House of Bishops committed itself to “maximum transparency”, including the publication of its agendas (before each meeting takes place) and its minutes, as outlined in GS Misc 1387. What processes are now in place to ensure the regular publication of these papers in an expeditious manner?
The Archbishop of York to reply as Vice-Chair of the House of Bishops:
A Thank you for the question and I am grateful for your persistence and help on the important question of how we can build trust through transparency in the work of the House of Bishops.
The minutes of the House of Bishops meetings are now available on the website at House of Bishops | The Church of England. I recognise there has been a delay to publishing the minutes, but in future these should now appear in a timely manner after they have been agreed by the House. Regarding the publication of the agenda – we are aware of further work needed to complete the points set out in GS Misc 1387 and will be working with colleagues on that over the next few months.
What a grudging and slow response, prompted by another prod from General Synod, and further work is still required to even publish an Agenda online ahead of meetings of the House of Bishops.
An implication of not publishing the agenda in advance is that they may be making it up on current events… which would be a good thing? Maybe they are trying to hide things.. but there are so many systems in the CofE that seem designed to mean that you cannot change anything – – having another system is not a good idea in my mind… I am imagining e.g. Nov 24 an agenda is drafted, December 24 the agenda is published, Jan 25 the meeting takes place and agrees what should be said by Bishops in Feb 25… All stemming… Read more »
Presumably the agenda is made available to the bishops some time in advance of the meetings. Nothing could be simpler than putting it on the website at the same time.
PART 1 OF 2 Andrew’s question at Q153, together with Mary Durlacher’s related question at Q154, are placed right at the end of the Questions Notice Paper, so it is unlikely that either question will be reached during the Questions session today (10 February) to enable supplementary questions to be asked. A question which should be asked (and answered) is: Who was responsible for the delay in publishing the minutes and for the failure to implement the decision of the House of Bishops (recorded in paper GS 1387, presented to Synod in July 2024) to agree the recommendation of the… Read more »
PART 2 OF 2 The minutes themselves are revealing. [1] Those for ’15 July March 2024′ [sic], [HB(24)M5], record at para 1.3: “The House considered the draft minutes of the meetings of 15-17 May and 12 June (HB(24)M3 and M4), noting that these would be published in line with the commitments in GS 1387. Members identified a number of areas where the minutes contained errors and omissions. The Secretariat would clear the revised minutes with the Standing Committee before publication.” [2] Those for the October meeting [HB(24)M7], 3½ months after the July General Synod when Synod was told (in GS… Read more »
Ah yes, David, ‘the form of minutes’. Either/ somewhere between ‘ a full transcript, (including ‘misspeakings’?)/ ‘A full/ lengthy/ robust discussion/ consideration/ debate of … {Paper # (attached)} was had/ It was resolved that …/ further consideration was warranted (in due course/ when time permits/ …would be had at the next meeting/ before the next meeting and resolved by the Standing Committee as a mater of urgency and the decision conveyed to … by (date) …/ a vote was taken and … / the votes of members are recorded at Annex N …. I note, in passing that 73 members… Read more »