A NEW model for quasi-independent safeguarding is on the General Synod’s agenda next month, as are urban poverty and the parliamentary ping-pong concerning the Clergy Conduct Measure.
Much of the controversy within the build-up to the meeting, to be held in Church House, Westminster, from 9 to 13 February, has focused on the House of Bishops’ decision to bring the Living in Love and Faith programme to a proper end (News, 16 January). A motion of endorsement is to be debated on the Thursday (12 February).
Other business includes proposals to outsource Church of England safeguarding to a recent independent body, which were approved in principle last February (News, 14 February 2025); but implementing that call has not been straightforward.
The plan originally approved last yr called for the National Safeguarding Team (NST) to be transferred to a recent independent charity, and a second outside organisation to be set as much as scrutinise all church safeguarding. Diocesan and cathedral safeguarding teams would remain employed by their respective dioceses and cathedrals.
Since, then, nonetheless, the working group has concluded that this could require years of ponderous legislative processes. Survivors and others wish to maneuver faster, and so a recent model has been drawn up, a Synod paper explains.
One recent independent body can be created — provisionally titled the Church of England Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA). It can be overseen by a board, which might have a majority of non-church members.
The ISA would tackle the functions of the present NST, handling national casework and drawing up policies, led by a recent official, the Chief Safeguarding Officer. Local teams can be supervised but in a roundabout way managed by the ISA.
For further independence, the operational casework led by the Chief Safeguarding Officer wouldn’t be accountable to the ISA’s board, but to a different external regulatory body. “In this fashion, the charity would secure independence of safeguarding judgements whilst retaining proper oversight of the efficiency and effectiveness of safeguarding operations,” the paper says.
Finally, a recent ombudsman-style service can be arrange individually, as the ultimate port of call for complaints about how a safeguarding case had been handled, either by local teams or the brand new ISA.
This recent model would deliver “in a timely fashion” each “robust independence” and continuity with existing church safeguarding, the paper concludes.
In its debate last yr, the Synod voted down a more far-reaching model of independence which might even have transferred all diocesan and cathedral safeguarding officers into the brand new external charity. The Synod’s decision was condemned by survivors, but William Nye, the Synod’s secretary-general, said at a Church House press conference on Wednesday that the brand new approach had been shared with many victims and survivors.
“They don’t all speak with one mind, however the safeguarding structures board which is accountable for developing these ideas has a lot of survivors on it and we’ll need to have interaction with other survivors more widely.”
Mr Nye also said that several elements of the brand new plan might be implemented without primary laws and a lot quicker — as soon as later this yr. But other parts of the package would still need to undergo the standard synodical stages over several years.
One reform that the Synod had thought was complete has returned to the agenda, after Parliament’s Ecclesiastical Committee refused to approve the Clergy Conduct Measure (CCM) (News, 31 October 2025). The substitute for the discredited Clergy Discipline Measure, this was given final approval by an amazing majority last February.
In the autumn, nonetheless, parliamentarians objected to the best way by which the CCM made disciplinary tribunal hearings private by default, and Ecclesiastical Committee returned the business to the Synod as “not expedient”: the primary occurrence of this since 2002, the C of E’s Chief Legal Adviser, the Revd Alexander McGregor, said.
In response, the Synod shall be invited to amend the laws along the lines directed by the Ecclesiastical Committee.
Mr Nye told the press conference that this process would delay the CCM’s implementation by about six months.
A previous amendment for hearings by default fell, and it was, in theory, possible for the Synod’s Legislative Committee to return an unchanged CCM to each Houses of Parliament again. But the Synod paper explains that they consider this to be highly dangerous and have taken the more conciliatory approach of amendment within the Synod.
The document says that a second Measure, to reform of the national Church’s governance and institutions, has also been provisionally rejected by the Ecclesiastical Committee. So an identical amendment process (or showdown with Parliament) could also be discussed at a later Synod meeting.
Last yr, the Synod was imagined to debate a motion supported by the Church Urban Fund (CUF) to mark the passage of 40 years because the report on urban priority areas, Faith within the City. It was dropped for lack of time, and reappears on next month’s agenda.
It gives thanks for all those across the Church working to alleviate poverty and recommits the Church to the goal of “ending poverty in all its forms and manifestations, whilst asking questions of ourselves, our political, society and business leaders concerning the unjust structures and decisions which cause and exacerbate poverty”.
Speaking on the press conference, the Group CEO of CUF, the Rt Revd Rob Wickham, said that the Church’s social motion and outreach had been estimated as value £55 billion a yr to society.
And yet “deep poverty” was increasing in Britain today, he said, in addition to stark inequality between wealthy and deprived areas. Volunteers, often working unseen and unappreciated, were tackling this, offering “the potential for healing [which] lies in small acts of kindness and love”.
He hoped that the overdue Synod debate on the Thursday can be a chance to inform stories of redemption and challenges across the Church. “This debate will shape the Church’s mission in serving in difficult unjust structures and ultimately shaping the world as God intends it to be,” he concluded.
First, nonetheless, members will hear the primary ever presidential address by a girl. The Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, is anticipated to have been confirmed as Archbishop of Canterbury two weeks previously (28 January). She will speak on the Tuesday morning (10 February).
Later, she is going to introduce a debate on reimagining care, asking members to endorse the report of the Archbishops’ Commission on the topic published three years ago (News, 24 January 2023). The motion also calls on the Government to attract on the Commission’s recommendations because it sets up its own National Care Service (promised within the Labour Party’s election manifesto).
The following day, on the Wednesday (11 February), the Chair of the House of Laity, Jamie Harrison, is to guide a debate on mental health, particularly asking dioceses to be certain that mental-health training is obtainable to all of the clergy. If his motion is carried, church schools are also to be offered resources on responding to mental-health challenges for youngsters, and the Liturgical Commission is to be urged to consider, when drafting texts, the needs of individuals experiencing mental ill-health.
Other debates will include an update on working-class ministry, after a motion was carried unanimously a yr ago; and a recent code of practice for safeguarding in recent mission initiatives, corresponding to Bishops’ Mission Orders. This follows the Scolding review of the Mike Pilavachi scandal at Soul Survivor.
A diocesan motion from Worcester shall be discussed on the Thursday, promoting the usage of seasonal and fully biodegradable flowers in church. There can also be liturgical business, including the revision stage for the proposed Festival of God the Creator and the commemoration of the Twenty-One Martyrs of Libya. The Synod will even revise regulations to facilitate the rise in clergy pensions agreed last summer.
Synod decisions not now to be implemented include a regional trial of abolishing wedding fees, which has been scrapped as unfeasible. In a separate item, the Synod shall be asked to approve a one-off increase of £1000 in parochial burial fees, greater than trebling the fee overnight. This is argued to be a necessity to bring them into line with other cemetery providers and to assist parishes struggling to keep up their churchyards by voluntary efforts only.
A motion carried in July 2025 to extend the statutory entitlement for clergy rest to 36 hours every week has also been abandoned as too blunt an instrument, given the big variety of clerical working patterns. Instead, the advice is to take a position in changing the culture of overwork and unrealistic expectations, in order that clergy may give themselves more permission to take day off.
