Updated
This advertisement has appeared on Guardian Jobs, originated by Charisma Recruitment.
The full text is copied below the fold.
Co-Chair
We are working in partnership with the Church of England’s Wilkinson/Jay Response Group, whose purpose is to oversee wider engagement and further reflection, regarding two major reports on safeguarding for the Church of England.
The Church of England are looking to appoint an Experienced Co-Chair with safeguarding expertise from outside of the Church who can work closely with the Church of England’s Safeguarding Bishop to facilitate the Response Group meetings. They will operate as a supplier delivering a fixed-term contract for six months.
The Co-Chair will provide excellent leadership, direction and scrutiny, bringing external expertise from a highly senior role in safeguarding, from within local authority, NHS, public sector or third sector. Complex change management or project management experience would be an advantage.
Key areas of responsibility:
The successful candidates will be a senior leader, with excellent communication, and interpersonal skills.
You will be able to commit from March to August 2024, and possibly beyond this period. Response Group meetings will be held at least monthly and possibly fortnightly, online, and the Co-Chair will work between meetings with the lead safeguarding Bishop and staff.
Please note: Experience of church structures and practices, either professionally or personally, are neither a barrier or a qualification for this role, and the Co-Chair must be in sympathy with the aims and work of the Church of England.
For more information, please contact Sandra Smith, Associate Director, Charisma Charity Recruitment, info@charismarecruitment.co.uk or 01962 813300. Applications should be submitted through the Charisma website and include your CV and supporting statement.
We welcome and encourage applications from prospective suppliers of all backgrounds. We do not discriminate on the basis of disability, race, colour, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, or other category protected by law.
Closing date for applications: 17th March 2024
“Key areas of responsibility: Facilitate and chair meetings of a Response Group including survivors of abuse as well as people from varied backgrounds and professions who are serving the Church locally, regionally or nationally. Help the Response Group to understand the needs and experiences of people who use, visit or worship in the Church in a range of contexts, and to prioritise this over any other concerns. Bring experience of complex change management and restructure programmes involving safeguarding professionals (and preferably volunteers). The successful candidates will be a senior leader, with excellent communication, and interpersonal skills.” I find the language… Read more »
I imagine making ’empathy’ a job requirement is difficult. I would like to see how e.g. NHS do that. But I am concerned with “Help the Response Group to understand the needs and experiences of people who use, visit or worship in the Church in a range of contexts, and to prioritise this over any other concerns.” This could either be “fine” – because a need is to be safeguarded appropriately / have safe space. But it could also be the wriggle room to stop the chair being too “survivor focussed”. Also – the idea that they can do all… Read more »
Tim you make a very good point.
And I find the implications even more sinister.
Anyone who needs to work for a living need not apply !
I suspect they already have a rich or retired person in mind but have to go through the motions of advertising the job. Not offering a salary will ensure few people will apply.snd so the preferred candidate can be slotted into the job with the appearance of fairness.
You are not the first person to suggest that the advert is window dressings and that the successful applicant is already known.
I wish it were otherwise but such is the low esteem for the Church in these matters that it is hard to be surprised.
I see parallels to a present story of national interest. Hopefully everything is genuine but one can see why people might have concerns.
It’s possible that Charisma are headhunting for the post. That can be quick and sometimes a public advert is run in parallel just in case there’s people out there the headhunter hasn’t already identified.
I note that the advert has two different closing dates for applications: 8 April and 17 March. Not a good start! Also, given the ‘person specification’, is it realistic to expect a quite significant time commitment over a period of six months for only ‘reasonable expenses’? This seem cheapskating, especially considering the money spent on the Wilkinson and Jay reports: £250,000 and £730,000 respectively according to the written answer to Question 156 at the recent General Synod meeting. Is this to be an additional appointment, or will it replace the position of Deputy Chair, currently named as Jamie Harrison in… Read more »
This is a completely different job but please notice the completely different tone. It is a professional Christian advert for a Christian job. It manages to combine professionalism with humanity and Christian values. The advert from Lambeth Palace is filled with cold management speak that could easily be for a job in the Post Office from an organization that seriously considered the former CEO of the Post Office for Bishop of London. But instead we got a senior nurse. Christian love, caring and empathy doesn’t seem to matter at all. NETHERWENT MINISTRY AREA MINISTRY AREA LEADER We are looking for… Read more »
Surely key attribute that CofE require is ability to delay & procrastinate ad infinitum.
Why should the CofE expect an individual of the appropriate calibre and experience to carry out such onerous and demanding tasks for nothing? Moreover, whoever takes on the job will be in the publuc eye and is likely to attract much opprobrium. I can only conclude that the CofE apparatchiks don’t take the job seriously.
Am I reading this right? We want an experienced senior executive to do all the hard work for +Joanne, but it’s expenses only? That seems… bold.
Increasing volunteering within the Church of England is a good thing IMO. My bigger concern is reporting lines and whether this position is essentially window-dressing.
‘Help the Response Group to understand the needs and experiences of people who use, visit or worship in the Church in a range of contexts, and to prioritise this over any other concerns.’ Good grief! What about the people who no longer use, visit or worship in the Church because they (we) have been abused in the Church? The Response Group cannot possibly work out how to make the Church safe by externalising the views of ecclesiastical abuse survivors who have left. A couple of token survivors may be appointed to the Response Group but these people cannot possibly represent… Read more »
Sadly it must be admitted that survivors of clerical abuse are ‘Un-people’ as far as too many of the CofE hierarchy are concerned – ‘mischief makers’ as the unlamented Eric Kemp put it. So the CofE will continue to stall & restrict any action to the occasional bromide statement.
I can’t imagine that Charisma are ‘recruiting’ for this job just for reasonable expenses, can you? And whichever closing date you pick it is very close so there has to be someone’s retired chum all lined up and good to go.
It can only be described as an insult to survivors and members of synod who worked so hard to bring the Jay report centre stage.
It’s going to be fascinating to see who (if anyone) emerges as the appointee to this role. Many senior leaders take on unpaid public service roles, but in my experience, they tend to choose organisations that actually matter in society and that are recognised as crucial and important, if payment is not being made. The C of E is such an irrelevance to the lives of the vast majority of people in this country. Why on earth would gifted senior leaders waste their time with such an organisation, especially if they do their due diligence about who they would be… Read more »
Anyone with a grain of integrity will sidestep this advert and appointment. Professor Jay’s recommendations require implementation, pronto.
The only basis on which I can assume the authorities thought it appropriate to advertise an influential position without compensation must have been because they assumed that pay would make for suasion by the Church over whomever is preferred for the post. At least that must be the excuse: that they have so little trust for their own probity that they are convinced that they cannot help but try to bend anyone in receipt of a salary to their warped will. That justification aside, I am otherwise quite unable to fathom the rationale underpinning this truly bizarre advertisement. Moreover, why… Read more »
I doubt she’d be interested but Theresa May would be a good candidate. Lady May is a principled and hard working woman who attends church each week. Her Brexit deal was rather better than the ‘oven ready’ deal her successor landed us with.
Sadly, from my perspective a high profile candidate with no safeguarding experience would be terrible- and presumably just what the AC wants to allow them to keep their snouts deep in the trough … The scenario gets worse .
Professor Jay has presumably done all the heavy lifting in terms of safeguarding. Lady May also holds the record as the longest serving Home Secretary in many years. Surely as Co-Chair her role would be to make progress on the recommendations. As I said before I doubt she would want the job.
As far as I am aware she has not been knighted, so not a ‘lady’ in that sense!
Her brexit deal was better than he successors ‘oven ready’ deal, but that is a pretty low bar to scale, but yes a woman with a moral compass, not a bad choice I think.
She is the wife of Sir Philip May and thus Lady May in that capacity. Of course it’s not out of the question that on retiring from the House of Commons she might receive a peerage as a former Prime Minister.
Good point. I forgot about Sir philip!
Speaking as a survivor, I really wouldn’t want to see someone with a solidly C of E background, like Lady Theresa, as Chair. She, or others like her, are likely to be far too acculturated to the Church’s point of view. It needs someone like Dr Josephine Stein, an expert policy analyst who has held a senior position in the EU. Failing that, perhaps a Methodist or Baptist who understands Christian beliefs, knows how to apply them to real life situations (unlike the Archbishops’ Council), but has an outsider’s ability to see things as they are.
As PM Teresa May was – despite many fine qualities – too tribal a Tory, as demonstrated by her inability to reach out to Labour in order to secure a deal over Brexit. This would tend to support Janet’s hesitation as to her suitability for this role.
I am also still very unhappy with the suggestion that Professor Jay has now ‘done the heavy lifting’ in regard to safeguarding and that all we now need is an enthusiastic member of the Great and Good to chair a few nice meetings-( nicely of course). Unless it is intended solely as a procrastination strategy this is not a post for an enthusiastic amateur but for someone with a safeguarding background to avoid a repeat of the last fiasco.
And a good place to start would be aligning with current Equalities legislation which would have avoided Kate Keates’ concerns below
We need Professor Jay’s recommendations implementing and it needs someone with political nous and steel to do so. If it can be done in ‘nice’ meetings all well and good but as you imply it needs someone who is able and willing to challenge the status quo and ruffle feathers. A former prime minister with a clear moral compass seemed to me to be a good candidate. Lady May’s work around modern day slavery is commendable. There may be other equally or better qualified candidates out there. I disagree that it should be a safeguarding expert, it needs to be… Read more »
Her ‘clear moral compass’ didn’t stop her from creating a hostile environment for vulnerable immigrants and refugees, and triggering the Windrush scandal.
Janet we are all sinners and fall short of the Gospel’s impossible standards. I’m a floating voter who has never floated in the direction of the Tories, but if you’re looking for a paragon of virtue to co-chair this committee I think you may be looking for some considerable time. Politics is a grubby business but I think you need someone who can get this done rather the usual milquetoast candidates that the CofE comes up with.
I’m not asking for someone who’s perfect for this post. I’m asking for someone who is not going to be inclined to side automatically with the C of E top brass, nor be taken in by the lines fed to them by the Archbishops’ Council. Someone with an independent mind, not a dyed-in-the-wool Anglican like Theresa May. She has integrity, but she’s an establishment figure, a vicar’s daughter, and a lifelong Anglican.
Theresa May, even with the authority of First Lord of the Treasury was unable to convince Parliament that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ and implement ‘the established will of the people’ as expressed in a referendum. That may be thought to be evidence that her skill set was a bit short on the ability to draw together or discern a common mind or agreement to live with disagreement. That Mrs May is available to serve the country and church that she loves may not be sufficient.
Dominic Grieve was similarly ‘inadequate’ for some, including the electorate of Beaconsfield.
We need someone whose love for the C of E doesn’t blind them to the Church’s faults or its corrupt culture.
Exactly my thoughts
As she was the architect of the ‘hostile environment’ for immigrants, the one who cut police budgets disregarding the arguments of the Police Federation about the inevitable rise in crime and campaigned for remain and then adopted the language and attitudes of Brexiteer colleagues, I think she might possibly not be such a good candidate. She also didn’t want to meet with survivors of the Grenfell fire which did cause many to question her ability to show empathy. The present mess within her own party could also suggest she did not actually show leadership when it was necessary. She no… Read more »
Listening to ++Justin on the Radio4 ‘Today’ programme this morning, responding to HM Government’s plan to define ‘extremism’ spoke hesitantly and with some difficulty under ‘interrogation’ by Martha Kearney, it’s no surprise that he should want someone to ‘take the flak’. Surely a more credible person than Alexis Jay will be hard to find- why not as many say, just ‘get on’; her recommendations are clear. This doesn’t look good.
The poor man is out of his depth and I too winced as we heard him this morning. I thought that an Old Etonian would be more confident in the public sphere but it is not his forte. He seems determined to plod on until he simply has to retire. A more self aware person would have bowed out gracefully after His Majesty’s Coronation.
There will doubtless be some go-to candidate already lined-up. Watch out for the drum roll announcing some former judge and retired with seemingly impeccable credentials. But they’ll be insiders who have some sort of award from Lambeth Palace already, so ‘safe’; or have worked for a diocese in some senior capacity. There will also be several witless CEOs to consider, and who will be flattered into the role. Some have already given their time on the ill-judged and expensive mini-MBA programme, so they might be persuaded to give a bit more time. The common denominator will be that the candidate… Read more »
The non-discriminarion part of the advert lists most protected characteristics from Equality Act 2010 but not gender reassignment. Is that just a slip? Well, someone put enough thought into the sentence to add veteran status so there’s a lot of grounds for concern. There are even grounds for wondering whether the advert is legally compliant or whether it amounts to direct discrimination against gender reassignment. Trans people are at particular risk of spiritual abuse so personally I find it a very concerning omission.
Please note the changes that have been made to the original wording of the advert, as reported on the OP.
What does ‘supplier fee paid’ mean?
The “supplier” will invoice for services rendered. For example if they agreed a fee of £500 per day, that’s what they would invoice.
The “supplier” is not an employee so they aren’t paid a salary.
It’s pretty standard. For example it’s how the Christ Church review by Dominic Grieve was remunerated.
Who is the supplier in this case?
The Co-chair person, or quite possibly a limited company they have set up
So I instead of offering a stipend or salary, they will pay an invoice for fees submitted to them? Not a very transparent or equitable way of doing it.
Interesting changes – clearly somebody lined up who has made it clear they won’t do it for nothing…