At the beginning of this week, we looked forward to seeing some challenges at General Synod to the protocols around the Church of England’s safeguarding work.  Any such challenge was effectively blocked by a refusal to allow a following motion from Synod member, Martin Sewell. The details of this were ably set out by David Lamming in the previous blog.  This, among other things, questioned the absence of any mention of the Independent Safeguarding Board in the Synod papers.   Today, the hour given over at Synod to a consideration of safeguarding was a low-key affair.  The departing bishop with special responsibility for safeguarding, Jonathan Gibbs, said all the right things but there was little spark in what was said by him or in the presentation by the Director of the NST, Alexander Kubeyinje.  The challenge to the authority of Synod caused by the side-lining of an independent oversight body, the ISB, might well have raised the temperature of the debate.  In the event the Synod seemed exhausted from the earlier discussions on Living with Love and Faith.  Although the ISB was airbrushed out of the debate, the importance of a third-party independent scrutiny of the Church’s work in the area of safeguarding remains as vital as ever.  What follows are some thoughts on this theme. These were written by me last weekend before the debate.  The Church authorities may have marginalised the ISB for the time being, but the issue of independent oversight remains important.  If there are problems (as identified below) with the ISB as presently constituted, the way forward is to engage with the issues rather than airbrush them out of existence, as the Church seems intent on doing.

 The Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) came into being just over 12 months ago.  It was an initiative of the Archbishops’ Council (AC) of the Church of England, and it was conceived as a new body able to provide independent scrutiny of the various safeguarding bodies in the Church.   Since its founding the group has lurched from crisis to crisis.  It is hard to see that, in its present configuration, it will be able to survive and serve the Church in the future.  In this piece I cannot attempt to address all the issues that have emerged about the ISB in recent days and weeks.    Somewhat provocatively, any mention of the ISB has been expunged from the official safeguarding papers being distributed to Synod members.  What follows here may be regarded as some background information for anyone trying to follow the recent complicated politics of safeguarding.  Interest in the topic is widespread and we owe it to the overall subject to express our concern and interest for the issue.

This blog, for the sake of simplicity, is going only to discuss three points which pertain to the current ISB saga.  The storyline related to this organisation has become convoluted. Something of this complexity is reflected in the fact that the Church Times in its current edition (February 3^rd), gives space for three separate stories about the ISB.  I do not propose to go into each of these threads.  My method for presenting something of this continuing ISB saga, as well as presenting a personal slant on what is going on, is through asking questions.   In this attempt to ask questions, I hope I can give a fair-minded approach to some of the current problems facing the ISB and its relationship with the wider Church.

The first basic question which is fundamental to any understanding of the difficulties at Synod and the reports in the Church Times is this.  What is the ISB for?    A part of the answer is that the ISB was set up by the AC to provide ‘professional supervision to (but not line management of) the Director of the National Safeguarding Team (NST)’. This supervision is combined with the task of ‘receiving and responding to complaints about the NST’s handling of cases.’  There are another 14 items in the ISB’s terms of reference which appeared when the group first came into being.  One might expect that an effective response, even merely for the delivery of the two tasks mentioned, would involve the gathering of quite a substantial team of professional individuals.  Although there are plans for expansion, the ISB currently consists of, up till now, 3 part time employees with secretarial support.  As most people are aware, one of the three, the Chair Maggie Atkinson, has been required to ‘step back’ over a data breach allegation.  A complaint about this has been upheld by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).  So far no one has found a way of making a decision as to whether the suspension is permanent or not.  The other two members of the ISB bravely soldier on.  

This question, what is the ISB for, carries with it a second subsidiary question.  Does the group, (even with a promised input of new staff), realistically stand a chance of fulfilling these 16 terms of reference?  There are some basic problems.  Nothing I say here is any personal criticism of the actual individuals who work for the ISB.  They have been recruited from a pool of highly experienced individuals who presumably understand, among other things, management theory and the inner workings of organisations.  All three have also been chosen from outside church circles.  This is to enable them to achieve the necessary level of independence of church politics. There is of course one key problem in appointing people who have no background knowledge of the structure they are being asked to support.  They naturally find it extremely hard to understand the mind-set of those they are overseeing.  In this blog we have had cause to question the background knowledge of those who work for the NST.  It is never just a matter of absorbing new information; there needs to be an immersion into a new professional culture which may be initially alien to the newcomer.  The ISB member, Jasvinda Sanghera, who comes with significant background in the needs of survivors, has gleaned her expertise, I understand, from working with victims of domestic violence.  There may well be overlaps with survivors of spiritual and sexual abuse in a Christian context, but there are also massive differences.  Those of us who have been involved in the discussion about safeguarding for a moderate length of time, are constantly concerned at the way professionals in safeguarding roles have huge gaps in what we refer to as the ‘corporate memory’ around the topic.   When it was suggested recently that the remaining two members of the ISB undertake the writing of a report on the Martyn Percy saga, those of us who have seen even a little of the enormous quantity of material that pertains to this case, immediately wondered how many man-hours would be required just to arrive the starting block to undertake such an enquiry.  Apart from the mass of factual material to be mastered, there is the cultural background of church and college to be comprehended.  It seemed wise for the Archbishop’s Council to withdraw the ISB from this massive undertaking, even though the ISB itself has expressed its displeasure at this decision.  It will continue to be a challenge for the AC to find the expertise and the understanding of university/church protocol to undertake this task.  One fears that such an enquiry may find itself in the same position as the Makin enquiry – over-time and overstretched.

The third question we have to ask of the ISB is the one concerning its own internal relationships.  There has been in the publicly shared publications by the ISB a suggestion of internal friction within the membership.  One has the gospel passage about Beelzebub in mind, where Jesus said ‘Can a kingdom divided against itself stand?’.  It is hard, if not impossible, for a small part time group to involve itself in overseeing a large institution like the NST and its dozens of employees when it has the distraction of division in its ranks and run-ins with the ICO.  Such institutional malfunctions are serious and cannot be glided over without questions being asked.  The third question for the ISB is simply this.  Given the fact that there are reported divisions in the ISB, and your chair has been found to have failed to keep data safe, is it realistic to expect survivors and the public at large to have, in the near future, confidence in your ability to get important work done?

The ISB has been functioning for a year and it has been noted by Martin Sewell and others that, in the papers about safeguarding for this week’s Synod, even a mere mention of the ISB is nowhere to be found.  This is possibly an attempt by the AC to bury an expensive project under the carpet with the hope that no one will notice.  We might have some understanding for those who thought up the birthing of the ISB as a way of regaining the respect of society after the severe mauling of the CofE by the officers of the Independent Inquiry over Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).  Somewhere along the line, this project of the AC has failed to deliver what was hoped for.  The need for a completely independent body to oversee safeguarding in the CofE is still required, but the ISB has, arguably, not turned out to be the correct tool.  It is not the competence of the individual members of the ISB that I am raising here.  The fault seems to lie further back.  It falls on those who had an idea of what was needed, but set it up prematurely.   The IICSA challenge to the CofE to provide independent oversight of its own protocols for safeguarding remains.  Can the Church show itself able to administer a system of safeguarding without outside supervision?   The muddles and missteps that may be revealed at Synod this coming week perhaps indicate that the Church is indeed unable to manage in this area of creating a safe environment which enables those who have been damaged by its own employees to find a way to move forward and maybe even to flourish and grow.