by Martin Sewell
“Actions have consequences” : this observation certainly applies in much of the everyday world and it must surely apply in the legal world of regulation and governance. Last Thursday the long awaited Review into the conduct of the Governing Body of Christ Church Oxford was published by the Charity Commission after a lengthy process of study, interviewing and fact finding; the official warning and the 20 page Sladen review are publicly accessible here
http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/SCHEMES/491278.PDF
and
they make worthwhile reading.
The persecution of Dr Martyn Percy has become one of those iconic events that may change how institutions are viewed in future. It may not be inappropriate to make a comparison with the Dreyfus Affair in Edwardian France and the UK Profumo scandal, where the standards of the old Establishment intersected with the changing standards of “Swinging Britain” in the early 1960s. One might even add the bungled bugging escapade known as “ Watergate “ – initially dismissed by actor John Wayne as a “panty raid” but which ended with the resignation of a President. Each began on a small scale, but then grew to have enormous cultural consequence; so, I suggest, might the Oxford debacle in College and Church alike. This is a major Establishment scandal.
We are, of course, used to hilarious caricatures of Oxford life in the novels of Tom Sharpe or Colin Dexter, where malevolence and jealousy simmer under the surface of civilised eccentric institutions, and powerful cabals plot, scheme, and even murder each other. In measured terms the Charity Commission reveals that life does indeed follow art, revealing very much a patriarchal culture in need of reform.
The report is very correct. It emphasises that the Commission does not take sides and thus confines itself to applying proper governmental standards, carefully weighing the Trustees in the balance and finding them seriously wanting. Yet disapproval and deep concern permeates the report and consequences must follow. For all the bluster as the Trustees face their University fellows and students, they know that they have been shown to be very morally compromised indeed.
From Andrew Billen’s podcast “The Feud” we can hear much of the background story and it has featured in several blogs https://archbishopcranmer.com/tag/sir-andrew-smith/
The identification of the “weaponisation of safeguarding” by the malcontent dons is certainly confirmed by the Commission’s Reviewer
The significant “takeaways” from the Report are these
• “There is a sense from reading the papers that whatever the cost of taking action against the Dean, the Charity was prepared to take it, which is not consistent with managing the Charity’s resources responsibly.”
£1.9m was spent on the Sir Andrew Smith Tribunal, which considered 27 allegations of financial misconduct against the Dean, which were dismissed and the Dean returned to office. Thereafter, the costs escalated to £6.6m largely on account of failed allegations concerning safeguarding . There are 66 Trustees; a rough and ready equal sharing of restitution to the Charity would cost each £100k.It is also noteworthy that the Dean had been prepared to leave after the Smith tribunal decision in 2019 in return for a proper Governance review and a severance package to include his legal costs of then approx £400k. That settlement eventually occurred but not until after the malcontents had rejected that option, setting themselves on a path to wasting millions. The malcontent defensive line appears, from the Sladen review, to be to blame the Dean as he would not buckle to their bullying so they had to keep throwing charitable funds at the “problem”.
• “The Reviewer also observes that it is hard to avoid a view, having read the case files, that the trustees, or a proportion of them, were determined to remove the Dean from the Charity at almost any cost and this is exactly why the Commission has had such concern about the size of the costs incurred in the dispute with him and that this warranted consideration of an Official Warning.”
This is hugely significant. It confirms the presence of institutional bullying. If you are prepared to do whatever it takes, at whatever the cost, (using charitable funds) and your project becomes divorced from proportionality, and even due legal or accountancy process, this is the quintessence of “institutional bullying.”
One helpful external definition identifies this phenomenon as “when bullying behaviours become so entrenched within an organisation without being challenged that they become the accepted norm, and are tolerated either consciously or unconsciously or even condoned”.
• “There was an obligation on the trustees to be accountable for the way they spent the Charity’s funds and this requires openness amongst the Governing Body about costs.”
When it comes to culpability, the trustees appear to fall into three groups. There was a core group to whom management of the ejection project was delegated. They must have a primary responsibility for the waste of funds; they have been loosely described as “the malcontents” – the strategists who worked with the lawyers to devise and execute the plan. The second group – the majority of trustees – let the malcontents get on with it, without exercising the proper scrutiny and control which is the fundamental responsibility of all trustees, from those of the National Trust to the smallest church PCC.
The third tiny group spoke up for integrity and proportionality but were constantly overused or ignored, they could either resign or hang on, hoping to bring their colleagues to their senses. They were effectively victims of coercive control. They should be exempt from criticism and financial consequences.
The majority generic failure of control, curiosity and moral courage is what is termed mismanagement by the Reviewer, but a careful reader will note that the issue of “misconduct” has not been removed from the table. The review goes only to the financial element of the matter but there is also something fundamentally rotten here – and that applies equally to the Church, there were sins of commission and omission. At all levels, there have been too many moral bystanders reaching for plausible deniability.
The malignancy needs investigating wheresoever it occurred; this is not just a story about inadequate standards of accountancy . The Review looks for deeper inquiry to the independent Governance Review being conducted by Dominic Grieve KC . He is working however in accordance with terms of reference drafted by the Trustees and their lawyers. How critical that report will be and how much it examines misconduct retrospectively remains to be seen. However, things do not have to wait.
Those trustees who were kept in the dark have a continuing duty to hold the more compromised trustees to account. They certainly should ensure that they are independently legally advised, during a process what may become a competitive allocation of blame – some are plainly more guilty than others and there, possible misconduct remains the issue rather than negligence.
The Report discloses that the Trustees instructed their lawyers to persuade the Commission not to publish their proposed ‘Official Warning’ but instead to agree an action plan. The lawyers filed over 800 pages of ‘evidence’ in an attempt to prevent donors and public alike from learning about the Trustees’ failings. That is an additional cost to the Charity and one hopes that someone will make a Freedom of Information Request on that subject so that donors can see where their money has gone.
At the Oxford Diocesan Synod on 12th November, I understand that those attending (on Zoom) were addressed by the Bishop, the Censor Theologiae, and the Archdeacon of Oxford, each of whom is in varying degrees under scrutiny as we try to unravel this sorry tale. The case for the defence was certainly adequately represented as Christ Church began to implement its crisis management strategy. The case for early resignations… not so much.
The College is was an esteemed public institution; notwithstanding assets of approx £500m. It receives significant public funding, not least £928,000 from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. Following very recent public political resignations there is a public mood and expectation that where those in responsible positions have been found guilty of “mismanagement or misconduct”, they should resign. Why not at Christ Church, Oxford – secular and clerical?
At the next Governing Body meeting those who knew the full picture, can – and should – resign en bloc. The other Trustees need to act in accordance with their responsibilities for the inadequate oversight identified by the Reviewer, even if one can have a modicum of sympathy for the newly appointed and the less worldly. It may not have been easy for them as they sat as mute witnesses while the malcontents delivered a brutal and very public punishment beating to the only person with the moral courage to stand up to the patriarchal culture represented by the powerful unofficial committee of ex-Censors.
There may be greater sympathy for the silent majority however if they now find the backbone and moral compass to require each of the core malcontents to step back immediately and hand over the control of the College into new hands.
This may not be an option for long. The Charity Commission is still involved, and that issue of misconduct is not yet off the table. Pretending £6.6m of hidden expenditure (and the additional consequential loss of donor income) is not a resigning issue would be a very powerful indicator to the Regulator that the trustees still “don’t get it” and that would signify ongoing mismanagement and perhaps wilful misconduct in closing one’s eyes to the obvious.
When Martin Sergeant, the Director of Operations at the Diocese of London, stole and gambled away £6m of charity funds, he was told by the Judge to expect a custodial sentence. The malcontent trustees used the funds for which they were responsible to pursue their own disproportionate and unregulated imprudent enterprise, like reckless gamblers chasing losses: the least we can expect is resignations.
The malcontents responsible need to recognise a simple truth; they gambled the House – it is they who should bear the loss.
Because of the nature of this material, the SC editor has decided not to accept comments for this blog post.
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