Updated
The Church Times reports: Independent Safeguarding Board serves dispute resolution notice to Archbishops’ Council
THE Independent Safeguarding Board has served the Archbishops’ Council with a formal dispute resolution notice, saying that the Council is continuing to frustrate its work and threaten its independence, while failing to put survivors first.
The notice was served on Wednesday afternoon in a letter sent by two of the three ISB board members: the lead survivor-advocate, Jasvinder Sanghera, and Steve Reeves. Its contents have not yet been made public. In it, they complain that the Archbishops’ Council has repeatedly blocked their work, compromised their independence, and refused to listen to both them and to survivors…
Read the report for more detail.
Update
We have received a copy of this ISB Statement.
We will update this article again when any responses to the letter are published, or if other information (e.g. the full text of the notice) becomes available.
Thank you to Steve and Jasvinder for this decision which must have been difficult but is full of courage and integrity. To feel the strength of their advocacy is very powerful and empowering. Whatever the outcome they have shone a light into some very dark corners. Thank you.
This is a damning indictment, and to me the worst part of it is that I am not remotely surprised by what the Archbishops’ Council seems to have been doing. I’ve come to expect abusive and corrupt behaviour from those in senior roles in the C of E, even those who go in as good people, determined to make changes or keep their humanity. So few actually manage those things when faced with such deeply embedded cultural problems. In any other private organisation or business, all those mentioned in this courageous Statement would be fired by their Board. In management… Read more »
The whole purpose of the Turnbull report (1996) was to give the Church more effective central government. The Archbishops’ Council was to be the ‘cabinet’, and the Church Commissioners and secretariat were to be under its heel. In effect, the powerful wings of the Commissioners were to be clipped. However, the analogy with cabinet government only went so far. For all its manifest failings, cabinets are accountable to parliament and can, in theory, be fired by them if confidence is lost (even the European Commission, which labours under a serious democratic deficit can be fired by the European Parliament, as… Read more »
This statement is incredibly significant in the life of the Church. For some time the Safeguarding crimes and disasters have been presenting a simple question to the Old School culture of the Church leadership and the answer has been constantly and discreditably reaffirmed. Is the Church leadership actually wanting to change its culture from arrogance, elitism, intransigence, and inward looking self regard? It does not. It would be too costly to old school culture to adopt humility and accept unequivocally the advice of people with expertise brought in from outside. Would it hurt so much to say “You know what… Read more »
Self-preservation should not be the primary aim of the Archbishops’ Council; it certainly appears that this is the case at the moment. In terms of ethics, could a modern day Luther nail the Nolan Committee’s standards in public life to the gates of Lambeth Palace?
Since the archbishoprics are public appointments, I wonder whether judicial review would be an appropriate way forward. Would they have to be exercising a public function to be accountable to the judiciary?
But beyond the Church Times so far this has not reached external media…
So sadly this could well rumble on for a very long time.
You can see the thought processes –
. how long is it till the driving forces of ‘keeping the lid on’ can retire gracefully?
.we just need to sit out Soul Survivor ( and possibly any of its friends we have managed to keep under wraps)
. Then our successors can wrestle with this as we keep our heads down
Except for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 as amended, bishops at least, and likely all Church of England clergy hold public office (see the precedent Church of England clergy James (1850) 2 Den 1, 169 ER 39 – the case regards a C of E priest refusing to solemnize the marriage to two qualified persons).
It would seem that the [Arch]Bishops are capable of being charged with misconduct in a public office and/or subject to judicial review, but who’s going to take that on?
Many thanks. This is may be worth noting: https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lawcom-prod-storage-11jsxou24uy7q/uploads/2020/12/Misconduct-in-public-office-WEB11.pdf (especially chapter 4, and note the response of the Church at paragraph 4.43). It has long suffered from being a rather amorphous common law offence/tort, albeit one refined by the tripartite test advanced by Leveson LJ in R. v. Cosford (2013):
(i) What is the office held?
(ii) What is the nature of the officer’s duties?
(iii) Do those duties represent the fulfilment of a government duty in which there is a significant public interest?
The question is presumably whether the bishops would fall under the third limb of Leveson’s test.
It is a very complex area, indeed.
For what little it is worth, I would say that, at least in terms of safeguarding matters, the Church of England as established falls under government duty (not least because this area is covered by statutory Measure), and there is also significant public interest.
An interesting document, and thank you for linking it. At page 171 we find ‘recommendation 6’ in these terms: “Recommendation 6 “10.7 The following Crown appointments should be specifically excluded from the list of “public office holders”: * Bishops of the Church of England * Masters of Trinity College and Churchill College, Cambridge * The Provost of Eton * The Poet Laureate * The Astronomer Royal “Additionally, the government should consider whether there are any other discrete Crown appointments that should be excluded on the basis that they have little or no relevant connection to public office.” Some surprising, and… Read more »
Indeed tortuous. But since the Peter Ball case, with a successful prosecution for Misconduct in Public Office (among other convictions), there is at least precedent in the case of a Diocesan Bishop (albeit retired at the point of conviction, though not, significantly, at the time of commission of the offence). It may, of course, be significant that Leveson’s test post-dates the date of commission of Ball’s offences. I bow here to those among us with greater expertise in secular law, and I haven’t looked in detail at the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the prosecution case, but if Ball was being… Read more »
Many thanks to Bernard, Mr Wateridge and Realist for all your observations (and for the reminder about Peter Ball’s conviction). I am firmly of the view that any bishop or other person in orders subject to the CDM holds a ‘public office’, in much the same way as a medical practitioner working within the NHS, or any civil servant, or police constable, holds an office, and that therefore he or she should be treated as being capable of committing the offence. As I see it, such individuals are holding positions of public trust and that a person subject to the… Read more »
Hmmm.
Further to my comment yesterday (27 May) the Law Commission, in their report ‘Misconduct in public office’, published in December 2020 (Law Com 397), propose a list of positions that could amount to public office (with power for the Secretary of State for Justice to amend the list by statutory instrument). The Commission expressly exclude bishops from the list, reasoning thus at para 4.58 on page 67: “In the interests of creating consistency of treatment with other religious leaders, we would propose that Bishops of the Church of England, who are Crown appointees, should be specifically excluded from the list.… Read more »
I think this CPS Guidance is the most helpful and authoritative current material, especially the section ‘Breaches of Duty’.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/misconduct-public-office
I think it’s a bold person who makes categorical assertions on this topic: even the CPS concedes that it is complex and every case must be carefully weighed on its individual facts.
The Cosford case (which concerned the prosecution of three employees of the prison service who worked in a high security prison as nurses) is reported at [2013] 3 WLR 1064. In the court’s judgment, the ‘test’ as formulated by the Court of Appeal (Leveson LJ, Mitting J and Males J) after reviewing the earlier cases was this (at para 34): “the nature of the duty undertaken and, in particular, whether it is a public duty in the sense that it represents the fulfilment of one of the responsibilities of government such that the public have a significant interest in its… Read more »
There are too few people who have the courage, strength and integrity to do the right thing when it counts. I give thanks that Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves are decent people displaying moral integrity and their actions are necessary and highly commendable. Competent safeguarding scrutiny requires separation from the Church body and its personnel. Let us hope that Synod members will understand the importance of this and act in a decent manner.
A lot of the commentary here (and before) compares the actions of senior CofE leadership to the secular world and finds it wanting for various reasons. But is the secular world the only world to consider? I would argue that in a lot of what the CofE is doing there is a conscious or unconscious harking back to a religious culture, exemplified by monastic rule, such as the rule of Benedict chapter three. “As often as anything important is to be done in the monastery, the abbot shall call the whole community together and himself explain what the business is;… Read more »
Simon raises an important question about a church culture that demands obedience to the powers that be and traces a possible source in the Rule of St Benedict, suggesting that Benedict demands silent obedience on the part of juniors. and that there is no allowance in the Rule for the abuse of power. In fact St Benedict’s culture is considerably more nuanced: the precondition for the obedience enjoined in chapter three is found in the ‘Qualities of the Abbot’ in chapter 2.In a real sense the burden of what Benedict means by ‘obedience’ (mutual attentiveness and accountability) falls more heavily… Read more »
Thanks for the response Peter. I agree that a nuanced and careful application of monastic rule may provide an appropriate response to a safeguarding issue. All I am trying to suggest here is that a reflection on such monastic rules might help to explain why religious people in authority (either abbot or bishop) might behave in what may appear to be questionable ways. Edward Stourton put me onto this in an article in the Tablet Magazine (13 feb 2023) discussing Ampleforth and its problems. “One of the IICSA report’s most striking quotations is taken from a document written by Dom… Read more »
Very interesting, thank you. I do think it helps to understand why enablers make decisions that seem to us so obviously wrong. It’s a pity that Fr. Timothy didn’t see the pupils who were being abused as being as much his responsibility as the monks were. But this is why inside appointments are almost always a bad idea – we find it so difficult to question a culture we’re saturated in.
Thanks Janet. I agree with you when you say “we find it so difficult to question a culture we’re saturated in”.
I have been scarred by standing up in various Christian spiritual discussion groups and daring to criticise the Rule of Benedict. But there is too much ambiguity about what we use it for.
It may be a fantastic document to pray with and meditate on as we develop our Christian lives, but as a manual of corporate governance for use in twenty first century religious institutions I think it is seriously deficient.
‘the Lord often reveals what is better to the younger’ – that element of the Rule seems to be overlooked. Pity the curate who thinks the bishop might want to profit from her/his expertise in a field of which the bishop is ignorant!
‘seems to be overlooked.’ Not sure what happened there!
Have corrected the original, Ed.
You have posted a copy of an ISB Statement, not the notice.
Yes, the formal Notice has not been made public yet. I’ll amend to clarify.
I was asked just last week by someone outside the Church of England why we handled safeguarding so badly and it started me reflecting about my ten years on the Crown Nominations Commission. When I was elected by Synod to the Crown Nominations Commission (the body that nominates diocesan bishops) in the early 2010s, safeguarding was not an explicit part of the interview or discernment process. Interviews were themselves a recent addition to the CNC process at that time. Some of us newly elected to the CNC found the absence of engagement with safeguarding jaw dropping. E.g. an early report into safeguarding in… Read more »
The day Peter Hancock stopped being Lead Bishop for Safeguarding was the day the C of E gave up on whistleblowers and survivors. Although he found it hard to make progress against the combined forces of so many elements of the C of E, he at least had ‘understood/got’ survivors whereas; the three most senior bishops, the NST, the Archbishops Council, the entire episcopate (with perhaps 3? current exceptions) the vast majority of General Synod, despite the heroic indefatigable lobbying of a tiny minority clearly demonstrate by their historic & current actions that they do not. it is such a… Read more »
I assume – given the extraordinary circumstances, deep concerns, and the huge responsibility the organisation owes everyone (especially the vulnerable and abused) over safeguarding – that the whole subject of the independence of the ISB and its mandate / terms of reference (as well as ways independence has been compromised or processes bypassed) will be given time for debate as a matter of urgent importance at the July Synod?
Safeguarding including a presentation from the ISB is included on the agenda for the afternoon of Sunday 9th July alongside the Oxford Diocesan Motion on the Climate Emergency (three and a half hours to cover both items).
Mr Nye controls the agenda for General Synod, and gets to look at the questions from the floor and vet/curate before the answers appear, and he is Sec Gen to the Archbishops’ Council. There is as much chance of an open discussion on safeguarding at next General Synod as revisiting Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine the next time there is a soirée at the Kremlin. The CofE has evolved into a kind of dictatorship under Welby. It is dominated by optics, reputational concerns and faddishness. There is no transparency, accountability, integrity or honesty. It is cruel and punitive. Mr Nye… Read more »