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Friday, November 8, 2024

Member urged to fix their manners

THE General Synod requested the Business Committee to revise the present Members’ Code of Conduct and to present proposals at a future group of sessions.

The debate followed a curtailed debate on the complaints process last summer (Synod, 14 July 2023), when the Committee acknowledged itself divided on whether there ought to be a binding code of conduct.

The paper put before the Synod on Saturday reported the outcomes of a survey conducted since last July, to which 165 members had responded. Forty-four felt that the present code of conduct was effective and no change was needed; 36 wanted legislative change, with formal sanctions for breach of the code; and 85 wanted a tougher code of conduct, but no legislative change.

Of the 165, 37 thought that the code of conduct should apply to members only during groups of sessions, and 128 believed that it should apply all year long. Concerns were expressed about inappropriate language, personal attacks, and behavior on social media. Comments spoke of the importance of respectful engagement.

Reporting on progress since last July, Canon Paul Cartwright (Leeds), vice-chair of the Business Committee, urged members to be smart in how they made their contributions, within the knowledge that, “often, the things we discuss are the things most pertinent to us.”

The Committee was minded to strengthen the code, but without further laws. “How we behave with one another . . . can’t be something imposed on Synod by the Business Committee.” He proposed a working group to take the matter forward, with a view to bringing more detailed proposals to the chamber in July.

Nigel Bacon (Lincoln) said: “Whatever side of the problem we stand on, the tenor of recent debates has, sadly, done us all a disservice.” He suggested that a revised code of conduct might be backed up through the use of appropriate provisions in Standing Orders (SOs), and he encouraged their full use. The Committee could consider revising SOs to permit members to withdraw “derogative and unseemly remarks.”

The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, said that the Synod was a spot to “hearken to one another and attentively to God”. Searching questions needed to be asked about its spiritual health. “Might a code of conduct include something like that?” he wondered. “Otherwise, its contribution can be limited. If we were attentive in our worship life and lifetime of prayer, each could be enriched.”

Luke Appleton (Exeter) quoted the Prayer Book in relation to anyone “in malicious and open contention along with his neighbour”. Such an individual, he suggested, ought to be handled by the minister who had the care of his soul. “Why can we invent latest things?” he asked. “Let’s get back to democracy and good church discipline.”

Penny Allen (Lichfield), via Zoom, deplored the jeering, and the orchestrated voting and derision, that had interrupted proceedings at recent meetings as “foreign to our principles and our Christianity”. In her public life, she needed to to enroll to courteous dealings in all types of verbal and non-verbal communication. Synod members whose conduct was deemed unacceptable might be asked to go away the room, and dioceses might be advised if complaints had been made about them. The Synod ought to be a spot where members were “not afraid of derision or confrontation”.

The Revd Neil Patterson (Hereford) urged the Business Committee, in the sunshine of the connections between this agenda item and two others [one relating to a PCC code of conduct, the other to bullying by lay officers], to “take into consideration this in a joined-up way”.

The motion was carried on a show of hands. It read:

That this Synod, acknowledging the feedback from members outlined in GS 2337, requests that the Business Committee revise the present General Synod Members’ Code of Conduct and present their proposals to Synod at a future group of sessions.

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