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.