Back in February I was paying close attention to the speeches at General Synod which were given on the topic of safeguarding. In particular, I was listening to the speech given by Bishop Jonathan Gibbs of Huddersfield, the new lead bishop for safeguarding in the Church of England. In what I wrote on this blog, I said that his influence was ‘crucial for the future of safeguarding and the welfare and interests of survivors’. I expressed a great deal of hope for this influence as he was expressing, in his speech, the firm expectation that, in the future, the perspective of survivors would be allowed to affect the way we ‘reshape our shared life in the church.’ He went on, ‘too many of us don’t get it.’ This speech with its references to redress, apology, action and change, seemed to be the mark of someone ready to speak the language of survivors. How would we want to describe this language that survivors want to hear? We would suggest that what survivors want to hear is language informed by pastoral instinct, care and compassion. They do not want to hear the language of an institution in defensive mode where the protection of reputation and assets is placed on a pedestal above everything else.
We now fast forward to the General Synod that is taking place tomorrow. Like all other assemblies the coronavirus has made it into a virtual event. I have not read all the papers but I am naturally interested to see if there is follow-up to the positive approach to safeguarding that came from Church officials in the February session. How is it being handled at this Synod? There are 13 questions on safeguarding matters which have been published, and the responses to these and numerous others questions have put out in advance on the internet. The responses to these questions is a major point of interest for Synod members. The answers which respond to safeguarding enquiries are all presented as coming from the lead Bishop, Jonathan Gibbs.
Before I go on to examine one of the questions in more detail, I should make a general observation about all these safeguarding responses. In February we heard from a fired-up Bishop Jonathan, who appeared passionate about his new responsibility for safeguarding. In July this same man puts his name to 13 responses to questions on the topic. It has to be said these answers to these questions sound like extracts from a dry legal text-book. Of course, some of the required answers did touch on questions of legal protocol and definition, but not all. The style of all of these responses is such that I would be very surprised if any of these answers were actually put together by Bishop Jonathan himself. Every single one appears to have been composed by an anonymous lawyer and Bishop Jonathan is simply the spokesman who delivers these ‘official’ answers. The human being that spoke with such passion back in February has somehow disappeared. In his place is a legal functionary who is anonymous and speaks in the way that will best preserve and defend the Church of England.
As I have suggested, many of the 13 questions from Synod members did require a legal-type answer. Safeguarding is, after all, often a matter of putting into practice the correct procedures, particularly as laid down by the House of Bishops in their 2017 guidelines. But amid the more formal questions of protocol. I detected a googly. Martin Sewell, a lay member from Rochester, asked a question which was bound to catch my attention as it related to the Martyn Percy affair, something the Church of England may regret becoming involved in. Sewell’s question, no 27 is as follows. ‘The Church has embraced the concept of “unconscious bias”. Will the Secretary General and the NSSP urgently review the composition of the Martyn Percy Core Group and confirm to General Synod members within a month, that having considered the importance of fair and proper process, they can assure us that the Core Group was free from unconscious bias, and the Core Group decisions were untainted by it?’ The questioner knew that the placing of any group of individuals, well known to each other, with others who have been actively working to remove the Christi Church Dean for over two years , was operating with a built-in bias right from the start. Someone has likened this action as being like allowing members of the prosecution team to join the jury. Bias within the group was far from ‘unconscious’. It has made any objective pursuit of justice for Dean Percy by this group virtually impossible. Bishop Jonathan or the lawyer speaking through him, chose to ignore the evident gross anomalies of the situation, and declared the following in smooth lawyer-speak. ‘We are not able to respond to specific ongoing cases but as a general rule we would accept that as far as is reasonably possible in the circumstances of each case , a core group’s work should be free from bias ………’
The answer ascribed to Bishop Jonathan is almost certainly not the answer of the man who had spoken so passionately about safeguarding in February. The question was one about reflection regarding the issue of unconscious bias, one that is much talked about in this epoch of ‘black lives matter’. The question was not an easy one to answer and it demanded the exercise of the imagination by whoever tried to respond to it. The Secretary General and the National Safeguarding Steering Panel were being asked to reflect on what they thought might have been going on within the Core Group for Dean Percy. The answer that came back had not even allowed the question to be fielded on to William Nye and the NSSP. It was batted away by a legal functionary working in Church House without apparently any serious attempt to engage with the deeper issues implied in the question.
What are the issues implied by this question? Surviving Church has also asked the same question in a different way. How can a Church core group function properly when it contains openly hostile individuals to Dean Percy? Bishop Jonathan must be completely aware of all the ambiguities of process and law that still bedevil the Percy Core Group and its proper functioning. The formal answer that is published as a response to Martin Sewell’s question shows no trace of uncertainty or ambiguity. The answer neither answers the question nor does it hint at the struggling humanity of the bishop who spoke to Synod so movingly and passionately about the issue of safeguarding in February Rather we seem, in this answer, to have the words of a legally trained functionary with no pastoral awareness of the issues at stake. That does not reflect the reality of Bishop Jonathan. This formal answer seems neither to engage properly with the question nor offer an answer that could be said to be of any obvious value.
I have no means of knowing exactly how questions at Synod are dealt with and responded to. If my speculation is even partly right, that a Bishop’s reply has been drafted by a lawyer and we are witnessing a terrifying vision. The Church of England is led, not by bishops or archbishops but civil servants and lawyers who are hidden away in Church House. The task of General Synod is surely to demand to see the ‘real’ Bishop Jonathan, not the one who is not permitted to answer for himself questions put to him by members of Synod. In the case of Martin Sewell’s question, the individuals addressed were not reached. Bishop Jonathan/anonymous Church lawyer deflected the question before it reached its destination. Is that really how we want the Church to be organised? Is there an English word to denote an organisation run by lawyers? Perhaps that is indeed what we now have in England!
“It has to be said these answers to these questions sound like extracts from a dry legal text-book.”
I have read the answers to all of the questions here: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2020-07/Questions%20Notice%20Paper%20July%202020_0.pdf
It is not just the Bishop of Huddersfield’s responses which are problematic. I am struggling to think of a single answer to a single question by any bishop or other official that is not mechanistic, robotic, evasive or slippery.
I mention that since there are a number of issues which have evidently given rise to some fairly abrasive questions – not only with respect to safeguarding, since the Church has (in my view) handled the virus quite disastrously. The responses of the Archbishop of Canterbury to questions about the shuttering of churches are ‘masterpieces’.
Indeed, I feel that my noting the ‘legalistic’ responses you are flattering the authorities. What we have here is a collection of politicians in fancy dress. They could quite easily be standing at a dispatch box in the House of Commons.
I am myself a lawyer (for which many apologies), but I have few remaining illusions about my own ‘profession’. How do lawyers ‘think’? Well, they are informed first and (almost) last by an anxiety not to admit liability. This is not only because of the financial consequences to the client, but also the likelihood that the client (being as human and, therefore, as craven and cowardly as most other people) will be quick to blame the lawyer if there is an admission which results in compensation having to be paid and reputational blame being attributed to the client (consequent elevated insurance premiums being a long-term effect). Since lawyers are themselves often mortgaged or otherwise compromised, they will seek to shield their clients in order to pre-empt the blame game that would otherwise result.
“Is there an English word to denote an organisation run by lawyers?”
Jobsworth, perhaps? Sociopath?
Thank you Froghole for pointing out the wider picture beyond just the safeguarding industry. I can be forgiven for not wanting to stretch my concerns right across the spectrum of church activity. It probably goes without saying but Surviving Church has greater impact for choosing its concerns (and battles!) fairly narrowly. Comments are welcome if people see the wider implications of my interests but I seem to have plenty of material without wanting to go down every rabbit hole. One thing will be true about every blog that I write. It is normally composed over a single day and will have all the faults of hasty compilation. This present piece was written at speed in order to be read, hopefully, by some members of GS before tomorrow. Your comments F. have helped to emphasise that GS members are being considerably shortchanged by these professional answer writers!
Many thanks, Stephen. Please accept my apologies for expressing myself as I have (and your post was great in all respects).
I guess what I was attempting to say (badly) was that the approach taken in response to the safeguarding questions is mirrored in the authorities’ treatment of other subjects. Perhaps one of the reasons why so may survivors have found dealing with the Church as infuriating and dispiriting as they have is that it would appear that evasiveness and obstructionism are endemic and pervasive to the Church as a whole. The frustration endured by survivors is liable to persist for as long as safeguarding is conducted by any personnel associated with the Church.
Should we now be thinking about a national safeguarding institution funded by government and by a levy on all institutions with safeguarding responsibilities, and which is independent of all of them (and so is less susceptible to ‘regulatory capture’)?
On reflection, I was probably being unfair in being so acid about all of the answers to the questions (for which I apologise): one or two of the answers struck me as being creditable.
You cannot let lawyers run your organisation and succeed.
Lawyers functioning as lawyers generally function, as Froghole describes, to limit liability. To succeed, no let’s just start with survival, to survive you must have a strong passion for your core object. In the Church’s case that would be passion for God and Jesus, or maybe wonderful architecture, it’s up to them, but this passion must be at the centre of all they do.
I would say the same for my own profession, accountancy. Never let an accountant, in her capacity as purely an accountant, run your organisation. You’ll get excellent financial control and detailed and timely financial reporting, but your business will go down the pan, unless you choose a leader who has true passion for the key object of your organisation.
She may (the leader) incidentally be a lawyer or accountant, or have other professional background, but these alone won’t be sufficient.
Hiding behind lawyers can be the sign of an organisation in death throes. The lack of humanity (as you would expect) and evasion of answers to persisting questions is indeed pathognomonic.
I don’t denigrate these professions incidentally. It would be stupid to ignore legal considerations or financial ones for that matter. I would go further and recommend getting the best advice you can afford. But they can’t run the show for you wearing their particular hats. They are advisory only. As leader you must have courage to stick to the key thing you believe in.
Spot on Steve.
Nigel Davies who has recently restarted blogging on his site concerning Trinity Church Brentwood has brought to mind a safeguarding issue from 2005 in the USA. Of particular interest in light of this present correspondence is the instructions of the Insurance company to the Church leadership after abuse allegations surfaced: –
“….not make any statements, orally, in writing or in any manner, to acknowledge, admit to or apologise for anything that may be evidence of or interpreted as (a suggestion that) the actions of Vienna Presbyterian Church caused or contributed to any damages arising from the intentional acts /abuse/ misconduct.”
Happily the leadership rejected the instruction. The link is here:-
https://victimsofbishopmichaelreid.blogspot.com/2020/07/hiding_10.html
The lawyers are being given a hard time here! But we already have a measure of statutory protection in the Compensation Act 2006. Section 2, which applies to England and Wales, states:
“An apology, an offer of treatment or other redress, shall not of itself amount to an admission of negligence or breach of statutory duty.”
The words “not of itself” mean that other, further additional evidence is necessary to establish liability. “Treatment” in this context means compensation or entering into negotiations, in both cases qualified by the words “an offer of”. Without having checked, I assume that the law in Scotland is similar.
However, on the insurance point, the introduction to the Bishops Safeguarding Guidelines 2017 says that the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group has indicated that insurance indemnity is conditional upon the Guidelines being followed.
Many thanks for making this excellent point. It’s perhaps worth mentioning (though you probably know better than anyone writing here) that the 2006 statute crystallised moves which had been in hand for some time to address the perceived problem of a growing ‘compensation culture’, which were brought to a head in two cases from 2000: Mary Ann Slack v Rotherham General Hospital NHS Trust and Kay Sheldon v East Norfolk Health Authority. Both these authorities indicated that an apology would not of itself amount to an admission of liability. Prior to that point there was no ‘bright line’, and so lawyers would frequently advise their clients to make no meaningfully sympathetic statements to claimants (to their great frustration). I suspect that culture has cast a long shadow, irrespective of the legislation which came into effect in 2006.
You mention Scotland. My understanding is that the 2006 statute applied to all four countries. However, Scotland introduced its own legislation on apologies in 2016: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2016/5/contents/enacted.
Curiously, the 2006 statute has occasioned relatively little comment, much of the scant attention being drawn to Section 1, and its attempts to redress the so-called ‘Tomlinson trap’ which was thought to make volunteers increasingly apprehensive about offering their services to charitable organisations.
I originally wrote a much longer comment which dealt with different jurisdictions, but thought it was better not to complicate matters. I have no experience at all of the 2006 Act in its practical application.
Section 2 is expressly applied to England and Wales. Section 3 dealing with the specific issues relating to mesothelioma extended to all countries of the UK. I don’t think the 2006 Act was in any way unique in certain sections applying only in specific jurisdictions. (For different reasons, the recent legislation and regulations about Covid-19 have similarly been enacted by the UK parliament in relation to England alone, Wales and Scotland having their own jurisdictions.)
In the light of the the Telegraph’s front page article this morning regarding the abuse of minister’s wives and lack of interest from the hierarchy, are we surprised by any of this?
I left the Church of England because of their refusal to deal seriously with issues that I raised and refusal to consider the evidence, and tragically I am beginning to see that what I saw was the very very small tip of an appalling iceberg.
Christian morality, or even common human-decency seems to have gone out of the window, and as generous as Stephen was in his article about the New Archbishop of York, it seems the leadership is still complicit and pathetic.
Excellent stuff, article and replies.
I have just re-read the life of the penniless George Muller of Bristol, who never made any appeal for funds except to God, and supported two thousand orphans in Bristol in the 1850s to 90s. A wonderful example of faith.
If I was in charge, I would apologise, accept all liability and look to God for the funds to meet the challenge.
Didn’t Jesus say something about laying up treasure in heaven rather than on earth?