RESTORATION, forgiveness, and healing are needed at Oak Hill Theological College after recent “difficult times”, an organisational-health review has concluded.
It follows the departure in 2023 of the Revd Johnny Juckes as College President (News, 6 April 2023), however the Church Times understands that the concerns raised by staff which prompted the review don’t pertain only to Mr Juckes’s leadership, but additionally to the conduct of one other member of the present leadership. In the past three years, 15 staff members have left, including two of the three women on the teaching faculty. One resigned with a settlement, and one was on a fixed-term contract.
The College Council has decided to not make the review public. A summary and “lessons learned” were shared with former students in July. This document — seen by the Church Times — says that the unnamed independent reviewer found that the faculty was a “significantly healthier place than it was 18 months ago”. But it also identified “various areas that, while not shared by everyone, felt essential to deal with for the long-term wellbeing and flourishing of the College community”.
These concerned: “Council operations, the necessity for reconciliation and healing in some working relationships, relationships between departments, internal and external communications, giving and receiving feedback, skilled working practice, disposition towards others.”
The review was commissioned by the faculty Council and leadership team in November 2024, a yr after the appointment of the Revd Dr James Robson as Principal. The summary document acknowledges that “some stakeholders may express a desire that the review be something different than the one it’s (e.g., involving different people, making the review public).” Concern has been expressed that, after a high level of turnover, no former staff members were invited to participate.
In March 2023, the faculty issued a press release praising Mr Juckes’s “many strengths” and stating that he had left of his own accord and received no formal or informal warnings. But it acknowledged that “issues to do with Johnny’s leadership were raised. It is just not the case that everybody who worked closely with Johnny felt this, but others rightly used the College’s routine processes of review and reporting to focus on issues they saw along with his leadership effectiveness, or how he handled particular situations and interactions.”
These concerns “don’t include problems with scandal, nor are they of a safeguarding nature”, it said. While progress had been made in using “various mechanisms to assist Johnny address these areas”, he had, nevertheless, decided that “a fresh leader was needed to guide the College forward into its next season”.
The summary document seen by the Church Times states that the organisational-health review was “not meant to be an investigation into significant misdemeanours or allegations”, but that there had been “a robust and clear recognition that the faculty has been through some difficult, well publicised, times in its recent past”.
The first suggestion was “to pause, acknowledging the season we’ve been in and the necessity, in some areas, for restoration, forgiveness and healing”, it says.
“We have been doing this together as a staff team. Since then, various actions have already taken place; some recent practices have been introduced, while others involve establishing a representative staff working group to deal with them.”
The lessons set out within the summary have been “extrapolated from the conclusions”, the document says. “It is very important after seasons of challenge and tension to take time to pause together, speak openly and truthfully in regards to the challenges and issues raised and, with postures of humility and kindness, look to reconciliation and towards forgiveness. This isn’t easy and takes time and in some cases, mediation, but is ultimately, as a spot which desires to be marked by grace and forgiveness, essential to the continuing health of an organisation.”
The document says that “It has been hard to work out what to share and the way. We need to be people of integrity who honour our word to those that contributed and preserve confidentiality. . . In some ways it could be easier to say nothing.”
The decision to not publish in full was taken “to foster maximum openness, due to our duty of care as an employer to all staff, and since the reviewer didn’t seek to determine the accuracy of comments nor give people a probability to reply to what was said”.
This week, a university statement said: “As a College we value our strong Christian ethos where kindness flourishes and there are positive relationships. There will probably be occasions when concerns are raised with us a couple of member of staff, and we encourage a culture which enables issues to be raised and effectively addressed. In such circumstances we manage concerns in a way which is fair to all concerned, and in step with due process. We must respect the confidentiality of all our employees and any third parties and have an obligation to minimise gossip, rumour or speculation.”
Staff turnover had been higher within the post-Covid era and the faculty had been “disenchanted” by that, it said. “The Review helpfully explained a number of the potential reasons for a better turnover. It also identified progress and issues that require further attention, which we’ve been working on.”
It is known that concerns were raised at a gathering with former students in September about a scarcity of transparency. Former students sought clarification about what had happened at the faculty, and whether NDAs had been used amongst staff.
This week, Dr Robson declined to comment on whether there have been current concerns a couple of member of the leadership team concerning bullying behaviour towards female staff.
The college statement said: “Since the brand new leadership team has been in place the faculty has not requested any confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses in settlements.” A clause “resembling a confidentiality and non-disparagement clause did find its way into an early draft, this was never the intention,” it said. “Once this concern was raised, the wording was adjusted accordingly. Revising wording is a regular a part of the negotiation process in complex, private employment matters.”
The Periodic External Review (PER) of the faculty carried out by the Ministry Council in 2022 highlighted that only two of the 12 members of college were women and that every one eight visiting lecturers were white men. The college was “actively engaged” in addressing this, it said. The review team was “impressed by the leadership and management” of the faculty and had heard “overwhelmingly positive comments from stakeholders”.
There are currently one woman on the leadership team of 5 and two women on the faculty Council of ten. The teaching faculty of 12 now includes one woman.
