Second in a series of guest articles detailing the unhappy situation in the Church of England with regard to its failures in the management of Safeguarding.

by Martyn Percy

No. 2: Marking Their Own Homework

Trust and confidence in the Archbishops’ Council and National Safeguarding Team is broken beyond repair. The statements made on safeguarding and issued by both Archbishops, senior staff and Lead Bishops seem designed only mislead both church and public. Yet ordinary members of the church seem to be powerless in the face of the lack of accountability and competence over the ways in which safeguarding policy and practice is being operated.

Recently, the Archbishop of York was found to have deliberately lied to General Synod over progress on reviews and the closure of the ISB. Victims of abuse are now writing to their MPs and calling out the deceptions, incompetence and cover-ups. In a short series of five extracts of letters sent to Members of Parliament, the case for root and branch reform is set out.

These short extracts detail the deceptions fed to General Synod, the wider Church of England and general public. On the scales of justice, we find that statements from either of the Archbishops cannot be trusted and have little weight. Furthermore, little, if anything, that the Archbishops’ Council says to General Synod about safeguarding is likely to be true.  The scales of justice can no longer be balanced, and victims are now calling upon Parliament to intervene as a matter of urgency.

In five brief extracts taken from letters to MPs, the issues now being put to Parliament are carefully set out, and the call for independent statutory regulation of church safeguarding is made. Victims of abuse and injustice have no confidence in the Church of England’s leadership being able or willing to address the abuses it continues to perpetrate. Only external legal independent intervention can right these wrongs, and finally put a complete stop to all of the continuing injustices that the Church of England’s safeguarding policies and practices perpetuate.

We have recently been made aware of the Interim Support Scheme being weaponised against victims trying to secure help and support whilst their reviews and compensation are being worked out. Some victims report that payments are late, reduced or withheld if they complain. Others have discovered that their interim support is being covertly means-tested, and their family is expected to contribute to the financial support the Church of England may provide….

This is an unconscionable situation, in which the Church of England is now:

1. Constantly delaying independent reviews on abuse.
2. Consistently deceiving the public over what is “independent”.
3. Continuing to withhold funds and support from its victims.

Paragraph 24.3 of the General Synod Terms of Reference v3 (October 2023) for the Interim Support Scheme says that the Panel dealing with claims can require the following information:

Where financial support is requested, provide details of the survivor’s means on an income and expenditure form, supported by evidence, including likely sources of additional income (including income which the survivor is reasonably likely to receive in the twelve months following the request and if there is a joint income from a spouse or partner) and financial support which may be available to the survivor from any other source;

However, these Terms of Reference do not say the gross joint income but must only consider a joint income and must therefore consider the disposable joint income after reasonable deduction of reasonable expenses including expenses incurred by a partner in providing joint income. This might involve travel, business clothing, a motor vehicle, food when at work etc as well as debts, fines etc. There may also be children therefore the expenses related to those children must also be taken into account.

There is a legal judgement on this going back to 1990 – Delaney vs Delaney ([1990] EWCA Civ 14) in which Nourse LJ and Mr Justice Ward held that in considering joint incomes, all expenditure had to be considered and taken into account to allow the recipients of the joint income to live to a proper standard, and that any accusation of ‘living extravagantly’ levelled against the joint parties should be approached with caution.

Therefore if the ISS Panel have requested details of the income of a spouse or partner who has been abused by the Church of England, or in order to treat it as ‘joint income’, they should also have taken reasonable steps to establish what expenses she might be incurring and to be very cautious about accusations of extravagance.

Appeals against decisions by the ISS Panel(s) are decided by Mrs Maureen Cole (Chair of the Archbishops’ Council) Audit Committee. There clearly has to be very strong objection to Maureen acting in this manner due to a conflict of interest especially since during the past twelve months her Audit Committee has considered a report into the operation of the ISS which will require a follow-up and this will potentially lead her to be auditing her own actions.

Ms. Cole is a trustee of the Archbishops’ Council. So any Appeal run by her will in effect amount to her investigating herself. Ms. Cole has no professional accreditation in auditing, so is also outside any sphere of external regulation.

The Headline here is that Church demands that spouse or partner is expected to pay for abuse against their partner at the hands of the Church of England. Furthermore, if there is an Independent Appeal against the financial decision made, those who made the decision will be reviewing their original decision.

This is how the Archbishops’ Council define “independent”. They keep it inhouse, and mean by the term “compliant third party who continues to endorse the original decision”. The ISB, countless numbers of reviews on safeguarding incompetence and cover-ups have been subjected to similar “independent” processes. This is the church marking its own homework, again and again.

Proposed Actions:

In view of the above, victims are no longer to believe or trust statements made by the Archbishops, the Lead Bishop for Safeguarding and Archbishops’ Council to members of the General Synod on safeguarding. The situation has now become intolerable. Our concerns as victims and stakeholders can now be summarised under three headings:

Archbishops and the Archbishops’ Council:

1. Repeated delays in reviews.
2. Refusal to commission properly independent reviews.
3. Continued cover-ups of abuse.
4. Weaponisation of safeguarding against others.
5. Cease and Desist letters sent to victims complaining.
6. Deliberate lies told to General Synod in public.
7. Dishonest and libellous gaslighting of victims.

The National Safeguarding Team:

1. Gross incompetence.
2. No conflicts of interest policy.
3. No register of interest for staff.
4. Repeatedly dishonest processes and procedures.
5. No accountability or transparency.
6. Complete lack of professional standards.
7. No external regulation.

Lambeth Palace and Church House Westminster:

1. Largely exempt from Freedom of Information Act, 2000.
2. Constant non-compliance with data law.
3. Exempt from any external regulatory body.
4. Extensive conflicts of interest in senior management.
5. Audit Committee controlled by Archbishops’ Council.
6. Opaque patterns of expenditure.
7. Gross mismanagement of charitable resources.

We believe that the time is ripe for bringing legal proceedings against the Archbishops’ Council.  In the meantime, we wish to draw to (MPs) attention what the Archbishop of Canterbury has stated about the plight of the “ISB-11”, who have been left without any support over the past year. He says they are being well supported. This is untrue. These deceptions will not change whilst the present arrangements for oversight at Lambeth Palace and Church House Westminster are allowed to continue. The CofE keeps marking its own homework, and awarding itself top grades. It is time to end this fiction of fairness and competence. Safeguarding in the CofE, whenever weighed, is always found wanting. The injustice and incompetence cannot continue.