RESPONSES to the Jay report on the longer term of Church of England safeguarding were uncertain about how and when its recommendations is perhaps implemented.
The report by Professor Alexis Jay, published on Wednesday (News, 21 February), really helpful a complete overhaul of the Church’s safeguarding structures, to shift responsibility away from individual dioceses to 2 latest charities, which could be completely independent of church authorities.
The independent safeguarding charity Thirtyone:eight, which is experienced in the religion sector, welcomed the proposal for an external body to scrutinise safeguarding. “This suggestion has been advocated by us and others before, including in our evidence to the Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse [IICSA].”
The charity was concerned, nevertheless, on the potential removal of operational safeguarding from the Church, because, it said, this “risks a belief that safeguarding isn’t any longer their responsibility”.
A joint chief executive of Thirtyone:eight, Justin Humphreys, said on Wednesday: “This may result in unintended consequences as a consequence of gaps in ownership, understanding, and practice. If responsibility for safeguarding is perceived to lie elsewhere, it could weaken efforts to foster secure, healthy church cultures.”
Concerns concerning the implications of removing safeguarding from diocesan control were raised in a letter, signed by greater than 60 safeguarding professionals (mostly diocesan safeguarding advisers), in November, which got here to public attention only this week.
The letter argued that “IICSA didn’t recommend an independent safeguarding service, but really helpful the operational independence of safeguarding decision-making inside existing Diocesan structures.”
Professor Jay was the fourth and final chair of IICSA from August 2016 until October 2022. Among IICSA’s key recommendations to the C of E was: “Diocesan safeguarding officers ought to be employed locally, by the Diocese Board of Finance.”
The letter from the safeguarding professionals said: “The legislative groundwork for the delivery of operational independence as set out in [IICSA] Recommendation 1 has been laid by Amending Canon 42, approved by General Synod in February 2023, and as a consequence of receive Royal Assent in 2024.”
The implications of Professor Jay’s recommendations of fully independent church safeguarding for this process are presently unclear.
One safeguarding officer in a southern diocese told the Church Times this week: “We’re all a bit worn down by it.”
The timeframe for any personnel and capability changes is just not known, even though it is known that every one existing safeguarding employees would have a right to automatic redeployment in the brand new bodies under the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment (TUPE) scheme. The laws was last revised in 2014.
AN ADVISORY note from the law firm Bates Wells, published alongside Professor Jay’s report, sets out a number of the practical steps required for her recommendations to be executed.
“Professor Jay has really helpful that a whole change of safeguarding culture is needed . . . and that this may only be achieved by the creation of two fully independent bodies for the delivery and oversight of the safeguarding operations,” it says.
Her suggestion, the note continues, “is for the General Synod to pass a Measure, with parliamentary approval and royal assent, to offer that the safeguarding operations of the Church of England shall be conducted by [Organisation A] under the supervision of [Organisation B] and shall be carried out entirely independently of the Church of England. The Measure can even create two overarching statutory safeguarding duties which can apply to each emanation of the Church of England (whether personal or institutional, ordained or lay, remunerated or voluntary).”
The note dismisses the concept of contracting existing safeguarding bodies to the brand new organisations proposed, and concludes that, to be properly established, the brand new structures have to be on a statutory footing.
Safeguarding is to be discussed by the General Synod at Church House, Westminster, on Saturday. A motion is being brought by the lead safeguarding bishop, the Bishop of Stepney, Dr Joanne Grenfell, thanking Professor Jay and Sarah Wilkinson — the creator of the review of the disbanding of the Independent Safeguarding Board (News, 9 February) — for his or her work.
The motion, drafted several weeks before the Jay report was published, is non-committal concerning the direction of the response, simply requesting that the Synod “pursue as a matter of priority” the method for forming a response to, and considering any needed implementation, of the recommendations.
Members are to be shown a pre-recorded presentation by Professor Jay.
Writing on the Church Abuse blog on Wednesday, a former Synod member, Gavin Drake (News, 10 July 2023), urged members to amend the motion to request that such a Measure be drafted for consideration at the following group of sessions in July.
Notice papers were circulated because the Synod began on Friday afternoon, listing several amendments to the safeguarding motion. Martin Sewell proposes that the Synod apologise to the previous ISB members.
He also proposes to insert: “That this Synod cannot endorse the proposal for an implementations group as currently established en bloc, by an opaque process, comprising some members who may exemplify concerns or bear significant responsibility for the failures so far.”
A latest Response Group, arrange by the Archbishops’ Council “to contemplate the best way to respond” to the Jay and Wilkinson reports (News, 26 January), will meet monthly, chaired by Dr Grenfell.
“The purpose of the Response Group is to oversee wider engagement and further reflection regarding each Reports with the intention to transient the National Safeguarding Steering Group (NSSG) after which advise the House of Bishops and the Archbishops’ Council. Following the response to those reports shall be presented to General Synod for debate.”
THE 13 recommendations from Professor Jay emphasise that the 2 bodies liable for safeguarding — its delivery, scrutiny, and oversight — be fully independent of the C of E, and under a legally binding collaborative framework.
The definition of independence is further handled within the Bate Wells note. The firm has offered “a working definition for discussion” — that nearly all of trustees shouldn’t be C of E clergy, not have held any C of E office inside the past five years; not function or “act as agent for any emanation” of the C of E throughout the same period; and never function a director or manager of any C of E entity, or one wherein the C of E has a considerable interest.
This definition, wherein being paid or unpaid is taken into account “irrelevant”, applies to members of any diocesan bishop’s council, diocesan and deanery synods, and churchwardens and PCC members, but doesn’t rule out churchgoers. It would also prohibit any staff of church schools or members of diocesan boards of education from being independent trustees.
Responding to the Jay report this week, the Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun, was positive, and said that he looked forward “to addressing it in greater detail on the forthcoming session of General Synod and I hope that we’ll heed Professor Jay’s recommendations.”
In a briefing to the Religion Media Centre on Wednesday, the Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt Revd Julie Conalty, who’s certainly one of two deputy lead bishops for safeguarding, said: “I feel there’s a conceit, that the Church is indirectly above normal rules or skilled guidance.”
During the identical briefing, a member of the Archbishops’ Council, the Revd Dr Ian Paul, said of the Jay report: “I don’t think we’ll have any selection but to implement it.”
