Almost exactly one year ago, Surviving Church carried my blog piece on trauma-informed practice in safeguarding matters. https://survivingchurch.org/2022/12/10/trauma-informed-therapy-some-lessons-for-the-church/   It was a continuation, among other things, of my long-held dissatisfaction over the way that abuse survivors frequently encountered something other than compassionate understanding when seeking to tell their story to authority in the Church. I had noted some time ago that the National Safeguarding Team did not employ a single psychotherapist on its staff.  The dominant NST skill set seemed to lean towards management   I was thus pleased to see that Sarah Wilkinson, in her recent review of church safeguarding protocols, was anxious to emphasise the importance of trauma awareness among those who manage safeguarding at every level.  This is the first sentence of her recommendation on this theme.  ‘Everyone involved in decision making about safeguarding issues at the NCIs, from the Archbishops to case workers and including all members of the Archbishops’ Council, should have mandatory training on trauma-informed handling of complainants, victims and survivors.’ Wilkinson is evidently concerned at the high levels of stress and trauma being carried by survivors.  This is exacerbated by the fact that many of those representing church bodies, who sit on powerful committees and deal with the survivors, has little or no prior understanding of the trauma and experience of being such a survivor. She rightly discerns that when highly vulnerable survivors are brought face to face with people with little empathy or understanding, the level of additional suffering endured will be considerable.

When we look at the Church as a whole, the question that might well be asked by an abuse survivor is whether this institution is ever a safe place to enter.  The answer to this question may depend on our being able to discern where the particular local manifestation of church stands along a spectrum of what we can call abuse sensitivity.  At one end of this spectrum, we find compassion and effective care. Here we encounter a readiness by a church to provide every conceivable form of help to survivors.  There will be included spiritual, emotional and practical support over as long a period as is necessary.  At the other end of our imaginary spectrum, we can envisage a harsh cold and bureaucratic indifference to the survivor.  There would be no understanding of the pain and trauma, and even the existence of damage and vulnerability would be a cause of annoyance to the one trying to deal with the situation.  The judgement about where the current levels of care in the Church are to be found has to be a matter for the discernment of the observer in each situation.  At present, based on my listening to what people are saying, the consensus of opinion seems to find that the typical experience of care by the church is closer to the negative end of the spectrum.  What is experienced is more likely to resemble what is routinely found as a bureaucratic or managerial response to this kind of issue.

Churches generally fall somewhere in-between the two extremes of the abuse response spectrum in the attitude they show to survivors.  An inept or hurtful response to a survivor seeking help may of course be as much to do with ignorance and lack of training as it is an act of deliberate cruelty.  The fact that amateur clumsy responses are retraumatising victims should, nevertheless, be a matter for concern.  To say that so-and-so did not mean to hurt or trigger a painful reaction in an individual, already vulnerable, is not a good look for people who are claiming to preach a message of good news, love and healing to a hurting world.  There is good news in all this, though one has to understand these words in a non-biblical sense.   The good news is that the secular discipline of psychological healing does understand how to respond to trauma and can teach this skill to Christians. At the very least, church leaders and representatives need to learn from these experts how to stop heaping additional hurt on the vulnerable victims of church-based power abuse.   This, in essence, is one important challenge that Wilkinson is presenting to our Church. We ignore it at our peril.

The contemporary discipline, practised by professional carers who are faced with clients afflicted by trauma, is one that offers hope to trauma victims and survivors of every kind.  Various approaches can be found in the therapeutic literature, and I make no claim to any expertise in this area. Wilkinson was clearly, in making her recommendation for trauma-informed training to be provided across the Church, familiar with this material.  What follows here is an overview of what one centre in the States, the Buffalo Centre for Social Research, describes as Trauma-Informed Care (TIC).  Their helpful initial summary definition goes as follows. ‘Trauma-Informed Care calls for a change in organisational culture, where an emphasis is placed on understanding, respecting and appropriately responding to the effects of trauma at all levels.’  The short summary that follows this broad description of TIC, brings to our attention a number of observations about the wide prevalence of trauma in individuals seeking any kind of help.   Because the presence of trauma is so widespread, the ability to respond appropriately has to be built into the culture and practice of all care providers.  Their task is to provide appropriate support from the outset, providing a caring response towards any possible trauma victim.  This support must be shared in such a way that it does not lead to the exacerbation of the existing trauma symptoms.  One helpful question to be asked routinely, and which well articulates the assumptions and culture of TIC, is not ‘what is wrong with this person?’ but ‘what has happened to this person?’  

The Buffalo approach makes a number of other helpful suggestions about the possibility of re-traumatisation.  When an abused person has to experience a trauma over and over again through repeating the details to different agencies, this can be so painful that the survivor may be unwilling to cooperate with otherwise well-intended offers of help.  Sensitivity over such things as the location of an interview with a senior official need to be carefully looked into.  A TIC approach will ‘respond by changing policies, procedures and practices to minimise potential barriers.’  The staff dealing with abused individuals will always be alert to signs of trauma and thus lessen the danger of any re-traumatisation. 

In some ways this blog piece follows the pattern of the previous one looking at the Nolan principles.  TIC, it is clear, is also about values and culture rather than institutional competence.  Instead of the seven Nolan principles we have the Five Guiding Principles of TIC.  These are safety, choice, collaboration, trustworthiness and empowerment.  In some ways each of the words is self-explanatory.  Most of the values they describe focus on the importance of helping the survivor to feel safe and protected from any further exploitation of their vulnerability. Alongside this provision of safety and protection, there is also a recognition of the need to help the survivor to regain his/her own power and find the resilience to begin the process of healing.  The Church often refers to the ideal of putting the survivor at the centre of the process of safeguarding.  What we often find is an organisation in a state of panic, believing that its primary task is to protect its reputation (and assets) from the legitimate claims of the wounded and damaged.  TIC presents us with another model, one that respects the need and the longing of survivors to heal so that they can continue their lives with new hope for their eventual complete wholeness.

Although I cannot claim to have mastered all the other detail of Sarah Wilkinson’s thorough and detailed review, it was helpful that she chose to shed some light on this major issue concerning trauma in the safeguarding process.  Survivors are never a problem to be managed; rather they are a group of human beings who have emotional and practical needs as the result of abuse/trauma they may have suffered.  Their practical needs may include the recovery of lost income and livelihoods and the availability of professional support from experienced therapists.  Hopefully all these professionals will understand the meaning of trauma-informed help.  If some of this sensitivity were to be a required part of the wider culture of the CofE, as Wilkinson recommends, the Church everywhere would become a more wholesome organisation, built on the gospel principles of compassion and love.

Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership.

The list of words above summarise a report published under the chairmanship of Lord Nolan In 1995.  This document was a statement of the ethical principles and standards which should undergird the conduct of public life in Britain.  The institutions that might adopt these cardinal values include educational establishments, hospitals or departments of government.  Another similar statement of governing principles is published by the Charity Commission to state what should guide the conduct of every organisation regarding itself as a charity.  At a moment, post-Wilkinson, when the Church of England and its structures are being scrutinised in order to discover whether they follow a set of values that are recognisably ethical, it is helpful to revisit these Nolan principles to see whether the Church reaches or even aspires to the standard of ethics that they express.

Institutions of every kind express the aspirations and aims of the organisation in a so-called mission statement; they set out what they think the organisation is for.  They do not routinely give us any insight into the deeper ethical values that are observed (or not) by the respective bodies. A potential conflict between organisational aims and ethical principles is often observable in the world of politics.  It is hard not to be cynical about many of the high-sounding statements of politicians when, often, what one discerns at a deeper level is the pursuit of financial gain and political power.  Far too often in my lifetime a British government has been forced to give way to the opposition party because the sleaze and dishonesty have become just too obvious for the voters to ignore.  It hurts every time a trusted politician is shown to be unable to do what he/she is paid to do – to serve the people of Britain by putting the public interest at the front of their concerns. 

What is wrong with many of our public institutions, of which the Church is one?  In attempting to respond to a common feeling of malaise around institutions, I am going to risk making a generalisation about human nature.  This may seem unfair, but it is rooted in the observations of Lord Acton about power over a century ago.  My claim is that most individuals are honest and upright when working and living in small units, like the family or a small business.  An inherent honesty practised by the individual is, unfortunately, harder to maintain when the same person comes to work for and place his/her loyalty with a larger group.  The focus of loyalty may shift away from the ethics of individuals working in a small unit and change to become a slavish devotion to the large corporate entity they now work for.  This ‘worship’ of the large institution, especially coming from the ones who take responsibility for running it, can have a severely detrimental effect on personal integrity and conscience.  Powerful leaders of many organisations/corporations rarely seem to come through retaining all the old values of individual integrity.  Few people, if any, manage the responsibilities of wielding institutional power without becoming somewhere morally compromised by the process.

Returning to the seven words that summarise Nolan’s desired standards for public life, we might note that many of our institutions, including those which claim the category of religious, seem to work in a Nolan denying manner.  Without naming any particular individuals or occasions, I was shocked to discover, some time ago, that in the world of safeguarding the church institution has recourse, on occasion, to blatant dishonesty.  Whether this is being noted in the current Wilkinson review I make no claim, since the document was not available to me when writing this piece.   What I can say is that in the past, senior church people have been prepared to lie in a public interview or in the context of a legal enquiry.  Sometimes the corruption of truth could possibly be the result of a genuine mistake.  If that were to be the case, we would hope that the false statement would be admitted and corrected as quickly as possible.  When there is no attempt to correct wrong or false information, it remains on the public record.  Its capacity to cause damage to the church institution is there for ever.  A real act of remorse and an open acknowledgement of truth failure might persuade a watching public to feel some sympathy for the one making an error or mistake in falsely representing facts.  But the platitudinous expressions of regret uttered by senior bishops, but probably written by publicity professionals, do not rebuild trust.  It so often seems that the individual speaking the words of regret is using a book full of sanitised words and expressions where all real meaning has been removed.  The church lawyers seem to do one part of the cleaning while the other part is undertaken by communication experts who work closely with them.

The moment that a large organisation allows a single lie to be told by one of its representatives or top leaders and that lie is not later owned up to, any pretence of holding on firmly to the Nolan principles has been abandoned.  Honesty is apparently no longer thought to be worth fighting for and so the integrity of all leaders is automatically called into question. Ordinary members of the church desperately want to believe that behaving honourably on the part of leaders is an important part of their witness to other church members and to the wider public.  It is extremely disheartening to discover that the church establishment has become so careless of upholding the highest standards of honesty and integrity.

Why do people lie or bury the truth on behalf of organisations that they represent or lead?  I asked myself why it could ever be worth lying about something in a church context.  Two immediate reasons for telling such a lie occur to me. One is that the individual has been caught out in some serious failure to act or, worse still, some malfeasance. The lie is a desperate attempt to fend off the guilt.  A second reason for lying is the attempt to defend, not oneself, but the institution to which one belongs, and in which the person repeating a falsehood may hold a position of high responsibility.  If one does hold a status or position of power in any organisation, then one is going to do everything possible to defend it.  One’s own self-esteem and professional identity is at stake and the integrity of the organisation as a whole is needed to retain one’s own personal reputation and standing.

In recent months and years, especially since the IICSA hearings, all the shenanigans at Christ Church, General Synod and the collapse of the ISB, we have devastatingly become inured to the variety of ways in which the church and its officers have not always observed the highest levels of honesty. Because this has been the case, I am hoping the imminent report of Sarah Wilkinson and that of Alexis Jay will insist on proper independence and ethical professionalism for the safeguarding activities of the Church.  It may be that these two investigators will suggest to the church that the Nolan principles would be a good ethical foundation for the Church of England to follow. Surely these two ethical principles, honesty and integrity, can be expected of an organisation that gives a high priority to such values.

Returning to the other five Nolan principles, the one that leaps out for me is openness.  It brings to mind a shameful episode in the sorry tale in the history of CofE safeguarding in 2017.  In that year the Daily Telegraph revealed the existence of a secret document containing legal advice.  This warned bishops not to give any apology to survivors in case that might increase liability for the church.  This information was completely wrong both morally and from a legal perspective.  The Compensation Act of 2006 reiterates older guidance which specifically excluded this legal understanding about apologies.  Extra liability is not triggered by making apologies or offering pastoral support. The unnecessary suffering caused to survivors (and to the bishops themselves) over the years caused by this poor legal advice does not bear thinking about.  This advice over apologies had been marked ‘strictly confidential’ so there had been little opportunity for anyone to know about it, let alone challenge it.  Once again, a Nolan principle, here openness, was denied because of institutional fear and defensiveness. This lack of institutional openness has also been noted in the final Hillsborough report.

We have given space so far to noting how the CofE fails in three of the seven Nolan principles.  A longer post could no doubt find examples of failure in all seven categories.  Here we will pause briefly to consider the important principle of adequate leadership.  All observers of the safeguarding scene have noticed repeatedly how the church safeguarding institutions seem to lack firm guidance and direction.  Bishops seem terrified of being confronted by safeguarding queries.  It appears that what direction there exists in the Church of England on safeguarding is decided, not by bishops, but by lawyers and senior lay bureaucrats.  A close reading of the comments that are made following the Wilkinson Review will probably indicate that compassionate episcopal leadership has been almost completely absent as the church has tried to find ways to help us all move forward to repair and heal the sorry confusion that the CofE currently finds itself in the realm of safeguarding.

Revisiting the Nolan principles in relation to the church has not been a salutary experience for those of us who are members and still want to support the CofE.  It is hard to feel optimistic when we have suggested that in four out seven categories, the church is definitely in the ‘unsatisfactory’ section.  It seems unlikely that the remaining three categories would achieve anything much better.  All the Nolan principles are linked, and failure in one area is likely to result in failure in the others.       

This article was written jointly by some Members of General Synod with legal and regulatory expertise, Victims and Survivors of abuse, and those who have been further abused by the work of the National Safeguarding Team (NST) and the Archbishops’ Council, and its Secretariat.

A review commissioned by the Church, conducted by someone chosen by the Church, with a remit solely defined by the Church, and excluding events critical of the Church, won’t tell anything like the true story.

• Steve Reeves, former ISB member.

For me the most devastating consequence of the brutal abolition of the ISB without warning was yet another breach of trust by the Church of England: but this time it was not re-triggering existing trauma but instead a new and equally if not greater devastating trauma and betrayal.

• Testimony from Victim

We still have to live with the consequences of what happened but we shall never give up trying to expose the Archbishops and their friends reminding all people in the Church of England of the cruelty of their leaders. These people are so quick to pick on the weak and the vulnerable but they can never look at themselves let alone allow others to give an honest appraisal. It’s all to do with power: the Archbishops and their collaborators are so corrupt that they don’t realise the evil they are doing.

• Testimony from Victim

By any standards, the Review conducted by Sarah Wilkinson KC into the ISB scandal should send shockwaves through General Synod. There should be resignations from Archbishops’ Council. There should be calls in Parliament for intervention, and for the Archbishops’ Council to be placed in ‘special measures’, just as one would for a failing Health Authority. The Charity Commission should investigate this scandal – it represents a huge waste of charitable funds.

You have to read Wilkinson’s Review very carefully to understand how much of a shambles the Archbishops’ Council are. But before you do read it, can we remind you that the Archbishops’ Council set the Terms of Reference for the Wilkinson Review. In so doing, the Secretariat made sure that she could not consider any of the following issues:

• The immediate closure of the ISB, with just one hour’s notice, was a grossly irresponsible action in view of the Victims and Survivors who were working with the ISB.
• William Nye refusing to involve and countenance the involvement of an independent mediator between himself and the ISB, or to act on the Dispute Resolution Notice. Mr. Nye was urged to urged to bring in outside mediation, but he refused to do so
• Non-existent arrangements in professional care made for any of the Victims and Survivors under the ISB.
• The Archbishops’ Council and its failure to properly consult.
• Explicit public denials of all the above, also repeatedly made by the Archbishops’ Council.

Ms. Wilkinson was not allowed to look into these matters. Even so, resignations are now needed. The trademark of the Archbishops’ Council and its Secretariat is to manage their affairs with deliberate ambiguity and ambivalence, in order to avoid any accountability. Put bluntly, if there are no minutes of meetings, no notes or records of discussions, no record of votes at Archbishops’ Council, and the Audit Committee is repeatedly told to mind its own business, there can be no trust and confidence in the leadership of the trustees.

Having the Chair of the Audit Committee being part of the decision-making process is a grotesque distortion of what should be an entirely independent process. Yet even the Chair of the Audit Committee does not seem to grasp the way this weakens corporate governance   We need resignations and some restructuring.

We already know that the Communications Department at Lambeth Palace will be briefing the media that “lessons will be learned”, “it was all very difficult”, “we were trying to manage a difficult breakdown in relationships”, and “we did our best, but unfortunately it unravelled, and nobody could see that coming”.

None of this is true. The ISB is a symptom of a colossal failure in governance at the very top of the Church of England, by the Archbishops’ Council and Secretariat. That is why we must now have resignations and a total re-set for the sake of fully proper, authentic transparency and accountability.

Before plunging into the Wilkinson Review, please allow us to guide what careful and savvy readers might be able to spot as they navigate their way through the paragraphs.

Omissions:

1. There was no Risk Assessment undertaken in the setting up of the ISB, and in its work going forward. There was no Risk Assessment undertaken when the Archbishops’ Council decided, at a couple of hours’ notice, to close the ISB.

• It seems that victim-survivors don’t matter to the trustees and Secretariat. They only care about creating the impression of responsibility and professionalism. They demonstrated no care, thought or clue as to the consequences of their actions.

• If this was a Health Authority, the executive would be fired, and the Board resign. If our government had done no risk assessment for migrants, there could be criminal proceedings. But this being the Archbishops’ Council, their only risk is reputational. The vulnerable do not matter.

• Ms. Wilkinson could and should draw our attention to the lack of Conflicts of Interest policies in all Archbishops’ Council and NST work, and the lack of any Register of Interests for trustees and the Secretariat.

• Repeated failures by the Secretariat and Archbishops’ Council to follow GDPR legal requirements, make “reasonable adjustments” for Victims and Survivors under the 2010 Equality Act, or basic employment law.

• The total absence of Nolan Committee principles for public bodies (1995) which set out standards for public life: The principles are Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership. 

• Gross professional incompetence on the part of the NST and Lead Safeguarding Bishops, who cannot follow their own policies, and repeatedly obfuscate scandals and abuse they do not wish to address or be held accountable for.

Wilkinson’s work was not allowed to address these matters. The Archbishops’ Council set her homework, predetermined the method of marking, and the grading of it. You only have to see what Wilkinson was not allowed to assess to appreciate how deeply corrupt the Archbishops’ Council was, and still is.  We must now have some resignations.

Perhaps the elected Members of the Archbishops’ Council from the General Synod could do the decent thing and resign so that they can offer themselves for re-election and be judged by their peers. This would be honourable, but is alas, highly unlikely.

Next Steps:

We undoubtedly need the Archbishops’ Council to be subject to comprehensive external regulation and audit. The amount of charitable funds wasted on this ill-conceived and badly-managed project was predictable, as there is no competent person on the Archbishops’ Council or the Secretariat to set such things up.

The recent hiring of Kevin Crompton (“Commissioner”) and Sir David Behan CBE (“provide independent strategic advice on safeguarding to the Archbishops’ Council”:) have both been undertaken without any consultation with Synod, advertisements for the posts, or any sign of accountability and transparency. No Victim or Survivor can or should trust such appointments. (See https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/1-december/news/uk/lambeth-palace-sets-out-safeguarding-action-plan).

With no Conflicts of Interest policies in place, it would be impossible to know what vested interests might lie at the heart of these appointments. Virtually every Review conducted by the Church of England into safeguarding malpractice lacks any basic standards of transparency, probity, integrity, independence and proper accountability.

No one is ever called to account. We are simply fobbed off with the bland assurance that ‘lessons will be learned’.

Ms. Wilkinson was made well aware of this. But as her Terms of Reference were set by the very body that is so patently culpable of such colossal failures in its governance, it is hardly surprising that her Review is relatively opaque about such details. It would have been helpful if Ms. Wilkinson could have been clearer on a number of ongoing matters:

1. Repeated requests to the Archbishops for an account of why Mr. William Nye may have lied to – or misled – IICSA, and also to General Synod and other bodies on serious safeguarding scandals, are met with silence. Eventually, the Archbishops agree to an “external audit” of why there has been no reply. Nobody asked for this audit.

• What was required was an answer to the clear evidence of lying. But the Archbishops decided to answer a question they were not asked, in order to avoid answering the actual question that does need answering. This might be standard practice for squirming politicians during media interviews, (or latterly the Covid Inquiry) but is this really the standard of integrity and probity we want from our clergy?

• In the Percy ISB Review, Maggie Atkinson’s original Terms of Reference came from the Diocese of Oxford and Lambeth Palace, both of whom use Winckworth Sherwood as their lawyers. These are the same lawyers heavily implicated in “perpetrating the deliberate weaponizing of safeguarding against Dr. Percy”.  Atkinson’s Terms of Reference precluded the lawyers and clergy involved in the weaponisation from any criticism. As does the current proposed Review led by Sir Mark Hedley. Both Archbishops claim such work would be “independent”. Jasvinder Sangheera and Steve Reeves were expressly prohibited from engaging in the Percy ISB Review.

• Bogus Risk Assessments concocted against Dr. Percy, signed off by Diocesan lawyers, senior clergy, the Diocesan Safeguarding Advisor and others, were re-narrated as ‘assessments of risk, which is different from Risk Assessments’. That is despite “Church of England Risk Assessment” heading each of the 19 pages. The Bishop of Oxford defended these documents. If his lawyers and senior clergy are allowed to fabricate Risk Assessments with the clear intention of causing harm to an individual and in order to generate false alarmism, is anyone in the Church of England safe? We think not.

• Jasvinder and Steve worked very, very hard to build trust with victims and survivors.  Due to the vested conflicts of interest, ambiguities and ambivalence that the ISB had been saddled with from the outset, their work took considerable time. However, their fierce independence and obvious integrity won through, and slowly but surely, the antagonism of many victims and survivors was overcome by their professionalism, and by their obvious compassion and care. We have no hesitation in commending them for their resilience, when they faced initial scepticism and hostility from victims and survivors, who could not in conscience place any trust or confidence in the ISB structures established by Archbishops’ Council, and former Chair, Maggie Atkinson.

• For the avoidance of doubt, survivors and victims’ do not blame Steve and Jasvinder for the ISB debacle. The catastrophic failure was entirely the making and responsibility of the Archbishops’ Council, who hoped that by dubbing a body “independent”, members of General Synod and the wider Church of England would be duped into believing that the ISB was genuinely independent. It never was, nor would it ever have allowed to be so. So when Steve and Jasvinder started to show signs of  acting with genuine independence, the Secretariat pulled the plug on the operation with undue haste. The Archbishops’ Council betted on ambiguity and ambivalence being able to conceal all this.

• The governance of the Church of England is in deep crisis. Yet it is in denial about that. All the major National Church Institutions, the Archbishops’ Council and many Dioceses are a nest of conflicted and vested interests, but with no policies or oversight to manage them. The Secretariat at Lambeth Palace acts more like a medieval monarchical court than a function for serving trustees. Nationally, the Church of England is clueless about legal process in safeguarding, HR and financial control. They make it up as they go along. The Church of England desperately needs external regulation, and all safeguarding matters – policy, practice, regulation and appeal – must now be handed over to an entirely independent body that can call the Church of England and its powers to account.

One   Victim/Survivor sums it up:

The Archbishops and their allies having given us this new body, supposedly independent and supposedly a vehicle of truth and reconciliation, we first had to deal with the serial mishandling of our data by the first Chair of the ISB, Maggie Atkinson. Despite this, the two remaining functioning members (Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves) worked hard to establish trust with us all and owing to their professionalism and probity they succeeded in their mission.

Then, without any warning whatsoever, we learnt from the media that they had been dismissed. At this time there were twelve people who had complaints being investigated by the ISB: some of that number were so distraught at the news of what the Archbishops and their Council had done that waves of suicidal ideation enveloped us. All of us however were devastated by the callous, contemptuous cruelty of these people.

The recent appointment of Ineqe to review Lambeth Palace and diocesan safeguarding, apparently by the Archbishops’ Council is another example of the Archbishops arranging to have their safe and compliant practices audited by a body that can be relied upon to tell the rest of the world that all is well. The previous reviewers were far too critical and independent. Ineqe work closely with Winkworth Sherwood, and have a poor record on data and disability compliance, currently subject to complaints laid before the Charity Commission and Information Commissioner’s Office.

We already know that the Redress Scheme will keep being delayed and delayed, whittled down, and then blame and costs shifted onto parishes and dioceses. This will be the strategy of the Archbishops’ Council. Their number one priority is to avoid reputational damage.  All the Archbishops and Secretariat want to do is avoid liability, responsibility and accountability.

The Archbishops’ Council and its Secretariat are deeply corrupt. For Victims and Survivors, justice delayed is justice denied. As long as the Archbishops’ Council and its Secretariat continue to operate like this, above and beyond any external scrutiny, their delays and corruption will continue in perpetuity. There will be no justice for victims whilst these people continue to hold power and responsibility in safeguarding.

For these reasons, and many others, we now need some resignations. We are well past another “lessons learned review” whitewash. The Archbishops’ Council has shown itself to be utterly incompetent, unprofessional, and incapable of sorting out conflicts of interest.  Its only response to its total incapacity is endless cover-ups and comms-led spin.  We do not use ‘corrupt’ lightly of Archbishops’ Council.  But it is entirely proper to do so.

Safeguarding is unsafe in the hands of the Archbishops’ Council and NST.  They perpetrate abuse. The setting up of the ISB was done deploying duplicity and deceit, with General Synod, its Audit Committee and Victim-Survivors deliberately misled as to its nature and remit by the Archbishops’ Council. Yet again, Archbishops’ Council have perpetrated further abuses.

The Church  now needs to be relieved of all responsibility for safeguarding, and of policy and practice. We need fully independent regulation, outside the control of the Archbishops’ Council, bishops or National Church Institutions. Only then can trust and confidence be eventually rebuilt. Until then, nothing that the Archbishops’ Council says or does is worthy of trust.

by Martin Sewell

Following the peremptory sacking of the independent members of the Independent Safeguarding Board of the Church of England, in June of this year, and the furore that followed, both amongst the Survivor community and members of the General Synod, an independent investigation was set up, with a senior barrister, Sarah Wilkinson working on an intensive basis to deliver an overview of the situation.

In contrast with other reviews commissioned by the Church of England Ms. Wilkinson has worked hard to deliver the required report on time, and duly delivered it on Friday last. It is not only in this regard that we see what can be achieved: survivors who have engaged with her have uniformly testified to her professionalism, empathy, and kindness, which they report contrast unfavourably with members of the church when interacting with them.

We do not know precisely what the review will be saying, but we hope that Professor Jay and her team are equally impressed with what can be achieved when  highly  competent outsiders get to grips with the problems of church safeguarding.

There will doubtless be debate and perhaps controversy about what conclusions are reached but this has more to do with matters outside of Ms. Wilkinson’s control than complaints about her methodology.

The Church is giving itself 11 days to digest and prepare a response to what may well be a Report with significant consequences. This in itself tells us something about how the church approaches these matters.

IICSA heard and upheld historic complaints that the church prioritised its own reputation over justice, mercy and the needs of those whom it has wronged. We are still in that same situation. It is partly for this reason that I write in advance of the publication because we need to put certain observations into the public domain so that significant commentary can begin, sooner rather than later, on matters that already arise from the way in which the church has structured the review. This is no criticism of the reviewer.

The government recently legislated to outlaw and criminalise abuse within domestic relationships. There is ample testimony to the emotional damage that can be occasioned to vulnerable spouses and partners at the hands of those of a controlling personality. People invest in a relationship and the more they do so, the more vulnerable they become to abuse when the other party prioritises their needs within the relationship.

When complaints are brought to the church, those making such representations are often those same people who most trusted the institution. They may be parishioners, children in church schools or associated organisations; sometimes they are members of staff or priests, and even those in senior positions and significant relationships with the institution can find themselves harmed and abused within the complaint process.

The initial grievance is compounded and exacerbated by the toxic church culture of control. One sees this even in the case of the Wilkinson review.

All the former members of the ISB had and have legitimate important interests. In having their conduct considered within such a review, it is not simply about knowing what happened in the past. It may have a significant ongoing impact on their future professional reputations. As far as I can ascertain, all those to whom we entrusted the ISB project have been anxious to be judged on a level playing field. I have heard nothing to suggest that each and everyone of them is concerned that the review shall report on” the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.

I suspect none of them ( and few of us ) will claim never to make mistakes; the ISB members may have been subject to unreasonable expectation, ambiguity in the definition of their roles, and the intense pressure that goes with working in such a difficult field. These were, and are, people of substance and stature; the least that the church ought properly to have afforded them is a scrupulously fair process. Yes, even in advance of the report we know that this did not happen. I will elaborate and re-emphasise that the reviewer can and will only work within the parameters permitted her under the terms of the review. In the old expression of computer programmers” Rubbish in – Rubbish out”.

Now, there will not be much rubbish sifted by Ms Wilkinson; there is a very significant written audit trail to be followed, but any review can only be as good as its terms of reference. Both at the outset and following receipt of the review, Church House and its Secretariat have unquestionably formulated the scope of the document, furthermore it will craft the initial presentation.

I have previously referenced in blog posts that the church has been very keen on those most affected having a fair degree of import into secular Inquiries. Those into the Hillsborough disaster and the Countess of Chester Hospital (Lucy Letby) both saw senior bishops asserting the importance of listening to those most affected within the commissioning process.

What is sauce for the secular goose is surely sauce for the ecclesiastical gander.

Let us not forget that Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves have both been honoured by the Crown for their outstanding contributions to safeguarding. It was accordingly by no means unreasonable that before they put their professional reputations and future work prospects into a process that could, potentially, be ruinous, these two servants of survivors should have confidence in the review process. There is a shocking contrast here.

It would be very easy to see these, and indeed the reputations of Meg Munn and Maggie Atkinson adversely affected by the review outcome. In contrast the one thing that we know from every other review case is that the church is institutionally obstructive towards holding its own leadership to account. I include within that cohort senior bishops, members of Archbishops’ Council, and the Secretariat. The latter is of course, significantly involved in the scoping of the review and it’s presentation.

Thus it has been that, unable to secure assurances that Ms Wilkinson would be permitted, under her terms of reference, to go and report upon whatsoever she felt appropriate within this sorry history, the two sacked members of the ISB decided that they could not engage with the review as Ms Wilkinson and many others would have wished them to do.

There is much of the case which can be carefully reconstructed by Ms Wilkinson because so much  is already in the public domain, not least in the Synod statements which I and many Synod colleagues insisted they should be entitled to give. That was a creditable revolt against the management of the Synod processes by the powers that be, which initially denied them that voice. Let us hope this does not escape Ms Wilkinson’s careful eye; I do not discount that possibility.

The Church should not have  constrained the Review in this way. Everything that might have been relevant should have been placed within her purview. It is not what the people in the wider Church and indeed beyond wanted.  I do not suggest that the Review will be without importance significance or consequences but any good outcome will be in spite of its management not because of it and that is tragic.

Will we have got to the bottom of how we got into this unholy mess? Will anyone resign? These are matters we will need to consider as we read what is likely to be a very detailed and lengthy document published just as the Christmas season arrives with all its distractions. The Church insiders are already working on their responses. The people in the pews ( who actually paid for it) will have to wait a few more days.