Clergy conduct batted back to General Synod

THE Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament is anticipated to send the draft Clergy Conduct Measure (CCM) back to the General Synod for further consideration somewhat than approve its passage into law.

As it went to press, the Church Times understood that the Measure had been rejected as “not expedient”, on the premise, primarily, of concerns concerning the default expectation within the CCM that tribunal hearings can be held in private.

The publication of a report confirming the parliamentary decision and setting out the explanations behind it was expected yesterday.

Questions about this aspect of the CCM were raised in an evidence session in June, when the committee of peers and MPs questioned the Bishop of Chichester, Dr Martin Warner, the Synod’s Deputy Legal Adviser, Edward Dobson, and a member of the Measure’s steering committee, Canon Kate Wharton (News, 13 June).

At that hearing, Mr Dobson said that the “place to begin” was that evidence was to be taken in private, on the grounds that this may higher protect children and young adults, and that the query whether the default needs to be for public hearings had been considered by the Synod (Synod, 12 July 2024).

The Measure, given final approval in February (News, 14 February), will now should be considered further. The intention is that it’ll replace the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003.

Redress Scheme reviewed. The Ecclesiastical Committee took evidence this week on the Measure to introduce the Redress Scheme for abuse survivors, which was finally approved by the Synod in York in July (News, 18 July). Despite the raising of concerns at a hearing on Tuesday about a knowledge breach by the law firm administering the scheme, the Committee is anticipated to present the Measure the green light to turn out to be law.

In August, it was announced that the e-mail addresses of people that had signed up for updates on the scheme had been disclosed in a knowledge breach by Kennedys, the firm administering the scheme (News, 29 August).

The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, told parliamentarians that the incident had done “untold damage”. He said that he had been “very indignant”, but Kennedys had accepted full responsibility and had offered “generous compensation” to those affected (News, 26 September).

“We proceed to have faith in Kennedys, but that just isn’t an unqualified confidence,” he said. A variation to the contract was being negotiated that will ensure processes were checked.

The possibility of terminating the Archbishops’ Council’s contract with Kennedys had been discussed, and survivors had been involved in those conversations, he confirmed. Had the contract been cancelled, it might have delayed implementation of the scheme by about 18 months, he said.

The director of the Archbishops’ Council’s Central Secretariat, Simon Gallagher, acknowledged that survivors had expressed a spread of views about whether to stay with Kennedys.

In response to a different query, concerning the scheme’s compatibility with planned governance changes within the Church, which include the alternative of the Archbishops’ Council, Mr Gallagher emphasised that the position of the board overseeing the implementation of the scheme was that they “need to get on with it”.

The operational independence of the scheme had been “misunderstood”, Bishop Mounstephen said. While it was formally overseen by the Archbishops’ Council, Kennedys had been chosen because the administrator of the scheme, and would achieve this with a high degree of independence.

The fees received by Kennedys, case by case, can be “reasonable”, he said.

Asked by Jonathan Davies MP whether there was a danger that lawyers can be financially incentivised to multiply cases, Bishop Mounstephen said that measures had been put in place to forestall “ambulance-chasers”.

The programme director, Katerina Bashutska, said that the fixed-fee framework that had been agreed with Kennedys would, “hopefully”, protect the Church from “fee-chasing”. Fees can be reviewed in a daily audit.