It is some months since Surviving Church last looked at the ongoing saga of Christ Church in Oxford. Over the past few days, we have heard, without a great deal of surprise, that the College and the Diocese have appointed Canon Professor Sarah Foot to the post of Dean vacated by Martyn Percy. The question about whether Canon Foot will make a good Dean is not a topic I feel qualified to comment on. But there are some observations about this appointment to be made. One major challenge for the new Dean exists which will define her legacy. Is she able to help heal the entire institution, Cathedral and College, from the bitter divisions of the last five years of conflict?
Canon Foot was ordained deacon and priest in 2017. Once ordained her former lay canon status changed to become that of residentiary canon of the Cathedral. Her path to ordination had by no means been conventional or straightforward. Indeed, it took place against the background of some difficult issues in her private life. She certainly needed the backing of Dean Percy. Shortly afterwards, the cordial relationship that had existed between the two went downhill, and Canon Foot became a leading figure in the cabal seeking to remove the Dean. This campaign became both personal and deeply unpleasant. Apart from attempting to spread salacious rumours around Oxford in an attempt to smear the Dean, this group laid a series of 27 formal accusations against him before a retired High Court judge, Andrew Smith. He held a tribunal in 2018. All the accusations were dismissed one by one, but the campaign to discredit the Dean continued. Canon Foot had been deeply involved in the tribunal and during it acted as a prosecution witness for the College. The underlying reasons for the fracture between the Dean and this cabal of senior staff in the College (and canons at the Cathedral) have never been fully explained. Clearly, to judge by the enormous amount of energy that was expended on this campaign, and which incurred the expenditure of vast amounts of money (£7m), there was a great deal of malice flowing around the College. Whether it was politically wise to hand over the running of a college to a highly partisan participant in a dispute is a debatable topic. The powers that be were clearly keen to fill the post as quickly as possible. It would also have been well-nigh impossible to appoint an outsider with speed when there are so many unresolved tensions from the recent past. Whatever the wisdom or otherwise of this appointment, there is plenty of work for a new Dean to do, not least coping with the fractured relationships. This task will be difficult as, both within Christ Church and Oxford University as a whole, the new Dean is well-known for having taken a strongly partisan stance in the dispute. Probably the best we can say about the appointment is that it makes sense for an institution going through a period of trauma and transition to act this way after a time of extreme turbulence. Nevertheless, after these storms, the acting captain of the ship will still need a great deal of skill to bring the battered vessel into calmer waters. At that point, fresh leadership will be required – a person of calibre, but well outside the miasma of recent politics at the College.
Returning to one piece of information in the public domain, concerning the division between Christ Church and its Dean, we may mention the huge financial and reputational cost of the dispute. Together with the other ‘plotters’ on the Governing Body, Canon Foot approved the extraordinary expenditure of £7m in the attempts to remove the former Dean. How such a huge amount of money was needed for the task is unclear, but the income of various law firms and reputation managers have benefitted considerably. The costs to the College in terms of its reputation has also been massive. Numerous alumni who might have contributed to the College have withdrawn their donations and potential bequests are being withheld. No exact figures are available, but I have seen the total figure of a £20 million loss mentioned.
The enquiry into the Christ Church statutes and systems of governance by Dominic Grieve KC has begun. No doubt the difficult underlying issue of whether the Dean of Christ Church should always be an ordained Anglican priest will, at some point, be faced. Canon Foot appears to see herself as an interim holder of the post, pending any possible major changes to the constitution of the College that may be recommended by the different enquiries. At this moment it does make sense to appoint an available in-house candidate who meets the current requirements. I have no doubt that Canon Foot will have made some careful assessment of the existing and potential problems of the College/Cathedral. The challenges are enormous. She will be carrying the additional burden of having been identified firmly with one group of members of the Governing Body and it remains to be seen if she can ever fulfil the role of being a unifying figure.
Another crisis awaits the new Dean. At the Cathedral the clergy are now severely depleted since the departure of the Sub-Dean at the end of last year. A replacement Sub-Dean is urgently needed, but it is unclear whether the post will be attractive to able applicants. The legacy of tension at the College and Cathedral does not suddenly disappear. Richard Peers, the Sub-Dean left Oxford after barely two years in post with some unresolved disciplinary issues hanging over him. These were in connection with his alleged activities seeking to destroy the Dean. All the bishops in the Church in Wales knew about the cloud hanging over their new Dean of Llandaff, yet this appointment was still allowed to go ahead. Promoting individuals is one ploy that the Church of England uses to resolve disciplinary problems. We certainly hope to see some clearing of the air at Oxford Cathedral before new staff are appointed there.
We have already, in this blog post, identified one major problem for Canon Foot as the new Dean. Any belief that her predecessor deserved the three-year period of persecution that he suffered, even though Judge Andrew Smith found him innocent of all 27 charges brought against him, will make it hard to lead the College into a new stage in its history. Still less will she be seen as a figure of reconciliation. It is hard to see how she will manage to dissipate the toxicity of the past. The atmosphere at Christ Church will likely remain poisonous for some time to come and people will continue to choke on the fumes of the hatreds that were stirred up only a short time ago. It is almost appropriate to speak of a need for spiritual deliverance.
What of the Diocese of Oxford? From the beginning of the dispute, the Bishop of Oxford has not been public with any support for the Dean of his Cathedral as a torrent of persecution and attack enveloped him. Whatever the reason for an apparent animus, it was quite evident to anyone with pastoral awareness that it was an almost impossible task for the Dean to hold out against so much pressure coming from College, Cathedral, and diocese simultaneously. Considerable goodwill for Dean Percy existed among many diocesan clergy. It must have created some difficulty for these clergy who wanted to maintain a loyalty to Bishop and Dean at the same time. The referral of Dean Percy to the National Safeguarding Team over the early months of 2020, over alleged failures of safeguarding, turned out to be a completely fabricated event. In the end, Bishop Gibbs, the Lead Bishop for Safeguarding, called out this church-led act of persecution. The accusations were withdrawn, and the six-month suspension came to an end. After the previous long period of suspension over accusations, which the high court judge Andrew Smith had examined and thrown out, one might have hoped that the NST could have acted with greater alacrity. Certainly, the Diocese of Oxford did little to help deliver justice in this case.
In this rapid recap of disastrous events at Christ Church and in the Cathedral and Diocese of Oxford, we can see how it was, perhaps, inevitable that a ‘safe’ candidate, such as Canon Foot, would be appointed. Because there was a certain inevitability that a safe predictable insider would take on the role, it is important that we should look beyond Canon Foot and see whether we can discern the outlines of a new style College/Cathedral/Diocese partnership evolving in Oxford. Can we see an individual emerging with all the necessary skills existing in the same person? The answer to my rhetorical question is that I cannot foresee anyone with this needed set of qualities appearing for at least fifty years. Anglican clergy with the necessary political and academic skills are thin on the ground and a lot of water must flow under the bridge so that the events of the recent past can be forgotten. In my view, a lay appointment is an all but inevitable recommendation of the Dominic Grieve report. In the meantime, while Canon Foot is unlikely to pursue a reform agenda, she will be forced to keep the old extravagance of the Governors firmly kept in check. The Charity Commission have indicated that they still taking a close interest in the governance and expenditure of the College. Dominic Grieve’s forthcoming report will also, as with the CC, not tolerate sloppy systems of governance in the future. In short, the Percy ‘affair’ is potentially forcing on the College a series of reforming protocols. These will put a strong check on the privileged entitlement culture formerly found at Christ Church. Whatever else Dean Percy achieved, his tenure as Dean seems to have cracked open a closed system which had operated without proper challenge or scrutiny. The genie is out of the bottle and no one can return it even though, for the time being, a devoted member of the old guard has taken over the reins. Far from being an enviable position to find herself in, we see many intolerable stresses being placed on the new Dean of Christ Church. The new Dean will be facing, not an intransigent Governing Body, but the full force of state-run regulatory bodies which have no time or patience for poorly managed educational establishments.
The CofE has also promised some kind of internal enquiry over the Church missteps of the past five years in Oxford. It still must resolve various CDMs and official complaints. Both Cathedral and College need to know what has gone wrong. It is only in that way that a new broom can come in and do the equivalent of cleaning the Augean Stables. One penalty for failing to understand what has gone wrong is that the calibre of future members of staff, prepared to enter such a toxic unhealed setting, will be low. Christ Church may appear to be the most beautiful setting for clergy and academics to work together in the country. But, unless the inner causes of conflict that have been widely visible since 2017 are understood and exorcised, the rewards available to those working there will be mixed with intolerable levels of stress which no one should have to endure.
Re ‘Richard Peers, the Sub-Dean left Oxford after barely two years in post with some unresolved disciplinary issues hanging over him. These were in connection with his alleged activities seeking to destroy the Dean. All the bishops in the Church in Wales knew about the cloud hanging over their new Dean of Llandaff, yet this appointment was still allowed to go ahead’ This subject has been mentioned previously on this blog and Thinking Anglicans without censure. But the veteran journalist, Martin Shipton, at the Cardiff-based Western Mail, has been silenced by … (readers can fill in that blank) and has been unable to publish anything on this subject.
Martin Shipton was, though, able to publish in February a report highlighting the concerns of a worshipper at Llandaff Cathedral at the appointment of Richard Peers as Dean when, shortly before his installation in November 2022, the Charity Commission had issued an ‘Official Warning’ to the trustees of Christ Church, Oxford (of whom Peers was one, following his appointment there as sub dean in September 2020), which concluded that:
“in the context of a long-running dispute with the former Dean [Martyn Percy]” there had been “mismanagement and/or misconduct in the management and administration of the charity. This is because the trustees have not (a) managed the charity’s resources responsibly;(b) ensured that the charity is accountable.”
See ‘Concerns over Dean’s trustee link to ‘mismanaged’ charity’, Western Mail, 10 February 2023.
In the circumstances, surely none of the existing Christ Church trustees should have been considered for appointment as Dean to succeed Martyn Percy, even on an interim basis. If an appointment was to be made, ahead of Dominic Grieve KC’s report and the implementation of any changes he may recommend to the governance of the college, an outsider should have been appointed, as often happens these days in a benefice where there has been division, and/or other historic problematic issues, when an interim priest-in-charge is appointed, both to seek to heal the divisions and oversee any necessary changes ahead of the appointment of a successor incumbent.
There are usually 8 members of the chapter: the dean, the sub-dean, the archdeacon, the diocesan canon and the four canon professors (two of the chairs having been laicised, although one of these chairs is held by the new dean). The total is now down to 5, and Canon Ward is probably soon to retire (the laicisation of his chair seems inevitable, as is that of the moral and pastoral theology chair, recently vacated by Canon Biggar). It is hard to see any of the canon professors continuing to be held by clergy, as there simply aren’t enough ordained, or even Christian, academics. After the brutal Carlile/Joseph cuts to HE in 1981 it was common for at least one of the chairs to be suspended, as it was thought that there were far too many theological chairs relative to the size and relative importance of the faculty (there are also the two at Oriel and one at Queen’s). Canon Foot’s chair was lucky to be revived in 1992 for Peter Hinchliff (a lovely man), some 8 years after the retirement of ‘Happy’ McManners, and it was announced that it was to be laicised in 1995, shortly before Hinchliff’s sudden death.
The reason for annexing the regius Divinity chair to the 5th prebend (plus the rectory of Ewelme) in 1617 and the regius Hebrew chair to the 6th prebend in 1632 was money. The stipends of the chairs were too slender to support their respective office holders. Similar expedients were adopted with other university positions (in 1840 the Lady Margaret chair was switched from Worcester to Christ Church for reasons of convenience as well as cash). By the time the pastoral theology chair was created in 1848 and the ecclesiastical history chair a decade later, and by which time stipends had been evened out under the terms of the Cathedrals Act 1840, it was thought that annexing chairs to stalls increased their ‘dignity’. This explains what happened in 1995: it was an attempt to preserve prestige for the Church (even though Henry Mayr-Harting was/is RC), and not to break all connection with the cathedral, as happened in 1959 when Godfrey Driver (who had been Cuthbert Simpson’s deputy and, arguably, superior as a Hebraist) agitated successfully for the severance of the connection on the grounds that there were not enough clerical Hebraists of sufficient stature (Driver’s father, Samuel, had himself held the Hebrew chair, and his ‘Westminster’ commentary on Genesis is still worth reading).
The point I am making is that it is now impossible to staff the present chapter other than via ‘inventive’ expedients. The present arrangements are, bluntly, played out and have been since the early/mid 1980s.
I have my own definite views about this appointment, which I had better keep to myself. In happier times it might have been a suitable one. Personally, I think it would have been better to keep the deanery vacant until Mr Grieve had reported. I should add that Mr Grieve is a sincere Anglican (and was close to Vivian Green).
the Church of England using promotion to resolve disciplinary problems is rubbing salt in the wounds of survivors, by sending a signal that seems to say they did no wrong.
In an imperfect world most of us can live with someone escaping justice by judicial error, but for a Church to actively promote people when it knows that it has not even attempted to investigate allegations “capable of belief” is completely unacceptable.
Prof Foot was a senior trustee of a charity which has been issued a Serious Warning by the Charity Commission, which has found “that the trustees failed to manage the charity’s resources responsibly” having “failed to act on its previous advice, given between 2019-2020, to continue to have ‘close oversight of costs’”. In December 2021, when Prof Foot was acting head of the trustee body, “the Commission asked the trustees to provide information about the costs of the actions connected to the former Dean and how these costs were being managed. The trustees were unable to provide the information in a timely manner.” Again under her headship, the charity published accounts with “the potential to mislead the readers”. The Commission found a “failure to ensure the college was accountable for its expenditure on legal and public relations fees” and in summary
The regulator has determined that these failures and omissions amount to misconduct and/or mismanagement in the charity’s administration.
Under these circumstances it is hard to see how Prof Foot could be able to remain as a charity trustee, let alone being appointed to a permanent salaried position that involves acting as chair of the trustee body.
All quotes from https://www.gov.uk/government/news/charity-regulator-issues-official-warning-to-christ-church-oxford
Apologies for the length of the following which is offered (I hope) as providing a clearer picture of the position of the Diocese of Oxford and the Bishop in relation to the future respective positions of the Dean and Bishop. These were the Diocese’s proposed responses (subject to approval by the Oxford Diocesan Synod) in November 2022 to the governance review, emphasising the Dean’s Cathedral role being independent of the Governing Body, unlike as at present:
“It is committed to the continued value and potential of interconnected relationships within the Joint Foundation;
“It is right theologically and ecclesiologically in the circumstances that Christ Church should remain the Cathedral of the diocese, continuing to be prioritized within its charitable objects, and funded in perpetuity, with the associated Choir School and Canon Professors;
“The Ordinary of the Cathedral and Visitor of the Cathedral Chapter should become the Bishop of Oxford, with the Bishop fully involved in the appointment of all future Deans;
“The Dean must be accountable on ecclesiastical matters to the Chapter and not to the governing body of Christ Church;
“The Cathedral should conform to the requirements of the Cathedrals Measure except where its future relationship with Christ Church renders this unrealistic.”
The only comment possible at this stage is that any future laicisation of the Head of the College cannot affect the Dean of the Cathedral being an ordained priest. Currently Christ Church is expressly outside the terms of the Cathedrals Measure 2011. The Crown is the Visitor and surprisingly (?) the Dean is the Ordinary. Clearly the Diocese wishes to change these seeming anomalies.
When Percy was appointed as dean originally, what was their thinking? How, if it all, was it communicated? When the appointee turns out to be nothing close to what was actually wanted, you do wonder if anyone looks back and tries to re-evaluate their process.
Typically, rather than learn, committees chose the opposite type of candidate in successive recruitments, overcompensating their previous positions.
It’s not at all clear to outsiders how the Dean was appointed last time or, again, this time. Christ Church is totally outside the conventional structures of the Church of England.
As I point out above, one of the present Bishop’s grumbles is that he has virtually no authority within the Cathedral or in the appointment of the Dean. On this subject, in relation to the present appointment, and in response to the question whether the post had been advertised, there is this comment on ‘Thinking Anglicans’: “There would have been no applicants, and no executive search firm would have accepted the mandate had they sought external advice.”
Dominic Grieve’s review will doubtless address these issues.
Gordon Brown renounced active control over Church patronage in 2007. That did not affect Christ Church in any meaningful way. However, in 2008 he also renounced active participation in university appointments. Prior to 2008 the patronage/appointments secretary would take soundings, as per the appointment of Christopher Lewis in 2003. Lewis was not well known in Oxford (he had been vice-principal at Cuddesdon in 1981-82, but Cuddesdon has a rather soi-disant relationship with the University, not least in terms of physical distance). He was thought to be ‘suitable’ because of his experience at Canterbury and St Albans, because of his facility as a sportsman and his evident presence and social polish (his father was second sea lord and lord lieutenant of Essex). However, it has to be said that the field was a thin one, and members of the governing body had to cast around for information about him.
The effect of the 2008 change is that, instead of the patronage secretary taking ‘soundings’, the real decision making was devolved to the governing body. My understanding is that the field in 2014 was again very thin, the chief candidates being Graham Ward and Martyn Percy (there may have been others). Percy was the preferred choice, presumably because of wariness about there being an internal appointment (although this had happened in 1892 and 1969, for instance). It was noted at the time that Percy had been a head of house (even if one fairly remote from the University, albeit allied with the theological faculty), and would therefore have suitable administrative experience (Chadwick was not a successful dean because he found making decisions difficult, a consequence of his tendency to see all sides of every question). The decision was therefore effectively that of the governing body, who then presented the patronage secretary with a fait accompli. Since 2008 this approach has been par for the course for any crown appointment in the universities.
Part of the great bitterness of the dispute can therefore be attributed to ‘buyers’ remorse’ on the part of academics who, on reflection, did not undertake sufficient due diligence, and noted that it was their own mistake. That was due diligence which might once have been undertake by the patronage secretary and who would have advised the governing body. That said, it may be wondered what due diligence either party could have performed in 2014 which would have been adequate. However, as I have noted before, the main problem is the extreme paucity of eligible ordained candidates. If a large college has to resort to appointing people who have, or have had, connections with a seminary some miles from the University, then it is clear that the field is excessively narrow. This itself creates antipathy within the governing body: that they are forced to choose between candidates about which it is hard to undertake sufficient due diligence; it simply adds a further layer of resentment.
I don’t see how there can be a new beginning for Christ Church without the institution collectively and is leadership individually confronting the current situation. If they were to admit that some £5million of charitable funds has been mis-spent it would be a start. The next step might be to state that the institution had identified some of the reasons for the mismanagement and/or misconduct and taken steps to prevent them recurring. As it is, the institution proposes to go forward under the same system of governance with the same people in charge — there is no reason to suppose that the same things will not happen again.
Isn’t your first point answered by the active involvement of the Charity Commission? The issue of an official warning to Christ Church reminding all trustees of their duties and potential personal liability, plus the Commission’s scrutiny of the latest accounts which are to be filed shortly, together with Dominic Grieve’s review, should surely militate against anything similar happening again.
The public statement by Christ Church says this on the recent appointment:
“An independent review of the governance of Christ Church, chaired by Dominic Grieve KC, is underway. Implementing subsequent changes to the governance and statutes of Christ Church will require the approval of the University, the Church of England, the Privy Council and Parliament. This is likely to be a lengthy process. Once it is complete Professor Foot intends to stand down to allow new leadership to take Christ Church forward under new statutes.”
One can only take this at its face value, but as it emanates from Christ Church it appears to state a clear intention for change. All should become clearer when Dominic Grieve’s report is published – some time this year was the indication.
I’m not sure how effective the knowledge of the Charity Commission’s oversight is going to be for an institution that cannot accept publicly that it is, and deserves to be, under that scrutiny. The governance structures cannot change materially for years, so until then we have the same people, operating the same governance procedures, in the same mindset, as before. That is not a recipe for a “new beginning”.
The appointment looks like vindictiveness and a gross failure to understand basic ethics. I am minded of Cornford’s ‘Microcosmographia Academica’, as well as the introduction to ‘The Hunting of the Snark’. Far too much has been done on the square and far too much done to “avoid the washing of dirty linen”. Using procedure and reports to spin out (and bury) consequences is an old, old trick (an 1889 definition of a Royal Commission in Punch of all places comes to me), a weariness to the souls of those of us who care, and the bid by a biased bishop for more power is unsurprising and even more wearying. I’d have liked to see an invitation to one of the African women bishops to act as an interim Dean; failing that, one of the retired Canons, for 24 months; someone grounded, with fiscal probity, and no history with the House’s deplorable choices of the last five years.
Junubin artists have an anti-conflict collective they named “Anataban”, Juba Arabic for “we are tired”. Many of us increasingly pushed away from our church feel the same way.