THE Church of England is making “rapid improvement” on safeguarding, and will proceed to deliver it “from inside”, based on a report published on Monday — just 24 hours before the General Synod debates whether to outsource safeguarding.
The report by the INEQE Safeguarding Group is predicated on the audits of ten dioceses and nine cathedrals which were accomplished previously yr. The group is scheduled to audit all the C of E’s dioceses and cathedrals as a part of the method.
INEQE’s lead auditor, Jim Gamble, writes that his organisation has seen “compelling evidence” of improvements, and that the “systems in place are demonstrably higher” than they were previously.
“The Church of yesterday shouldn’t be the Church of today. Moral outrage and public exposure have driven significant change,” he writes, acknowledging that “for a few years, the Church and its community were profoundly let down.”
But things had modified, he argued: “Those on the front line of safeguarding are more aware, and the Church’s blended safeguarding teams — comprised of credible safeguarding professionals with previous experience from statutory or equivalent services — are driven by a safeguarding-first philosophy that’s consistently evolving and improving.”
In a sentence that implicitly refers to Tuesday’s debate, Mr Gamble writes: “When it involves delivering effective safeguarding practice — practice that genuinely works and makes a difference — it’s most effectively delivered from inside, not imposed from without.”
In a webinar hosted by the Church Times on Wednesday of last week, Mr Gamble urged Synod members to not vote for “Model 4”, under which each diocesan and national safeguarding teams can be outsourced to an external body (see separate story).
In an opinion piece published individually to the report on Monday, Mr Gamble wrote that, when he began the method, he was “initially deeply cynical concerning the Church’s capability to learn from past failures”.
He suggested that it was “odd” that INEQE had not been asked to have interaction with the response group convened to recommend the subsequent steps for Church safeguarding. “It is nearly as if there may be an inevitability that, whether right or unsuitable, something must be seen to be done to the Church.
“For what it’s price, here is my opinion: don’t tamper an excessive amount of with what is definitely working now, based on what didn’t work before.”
The audit process up to now has involved evaluation of greater than 4000 documents, 4629 anonymous survey results, and 59 focus group meetings, Monday’s report says.
A trend which emerges within the nine reports published thus far is of diocesan safeguarding teams’ having their capability stretched as safeguarding provision is scaled up (News, 7 February).
“Ultimately, without sufficient capability, workload becomes unmanageable, the workforce becomes unstable and the power to make people safer is hindered,” Monday’s report says.
The best strategy to address this, it says, and to make sure accountability for safeguarding, is to adopt a model through which dioceses employ a “director of safeguarding” who has “the authority to offer expert advice and oversight, challenge senior clergy and church bodies, and escalate concerns to higher authorities”, corresponding to the National Safeguarding Team.
INEQE suggest that such positions could possibly be funded by the Church Commissioners slightly than the dioceses themselves. Currently, diocesan safeguarding teams are fully funded by their diocese, something which the report flags as a priority.
“The commonest concern raised by Diocesan Secretaries has been the will to enhance safeguarding provision, hampered by a scarcity of monetary resources,” the report says.
