The General Synod’s decision to maintain the Church of England’s diocesan and cathedral safeguarding officers as church employees arguably showed good judgement and courage.
Synod members got here under strong political pressure through the debate on the longer term of safeguarding to transfer all safeguarding staff employed by dioceses and cathedrals to an external body.
In a robust speech on the Synod meeting at Church House, Westminster, on February 11, the Second Church Estates Commissioner, Marsha De Cordova MP, who fields questions within the House of Commons in regards to the established Church, pushed hard for full outsourcing under the model 4 option that members later voted down.
She said: “It is crucial that this assembly shows each Parliament and the general public that the Church is fully committed to alter …While I appreciate implementation of this approach will take time and resources, and alter is not going to occur overnight, model 4 can be step one towards restoring trust.”
She concluded: “If we would like to honour victims and survivors, and if we would like to work towards the sort of church we would like for the longer term, then that change must begin now.
“Synod, I hope you’ll enable me to arise in Parliament later this month at Church Commissioners’ inquiries to give you the chance to report excellent news to the Members of Parliament.”
But Synod’s decision to maintain diocesan and cathedral safeguarding staff in house while transferring a lot of the national safeguarding staff to an independent body is rational.
When Synod legislated in July 2023 in keeping with the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) to upgrade diocesan safeguarding advisers (DSAs) to diocesan safeguarding officers (DSOs), that secured their operational independence from bishops. The DSOs were not mere advisers to bishops but safeguarding professionals employed by diocesan boards of finance.
The legal change gave DSOs responsibility for safeguarding leadership in dioceses and meant that the Church’s National Safeguarding Team (NST) became accountable for the skilled supervision of DSOs over the heads of diocesan bishops.
What bishop in his or her right mind would attempt to cut across a DSO in a safeguarding investigation? Such a bishop would immediately be reported to the NST and disciplinary motion would follow. When the Church’s national safeguarding officers develop into employed by an independent body, the whistle-blowing powers of DSOs would increase exponentially.
A letter to General Synod members prematurely of their debate in London from 106 safeguarding practitioners within the C of E, which currently spends around £20 million per yr on safeguarding, had argued: “Detaching the Church of England’s safeguarding staff from their current employers will almost inevitably create additional barriers to communication and cooperation, harming service delivery.
“Given that ‘service delivery’ on this context involves protecting children and vulnerable adults, any barriers by any means could have essentially the most serious consequences. The very very last thing the Church of England needs is to disrupt the working relationships between church officers and the safeguarding professionals who work with them.”
When it got here to the vote, the vast majority of Synod members selected to agree with these safeguarding professionals in defiance of external pressure, which prompts the query: why won’t Synod show the identical rationality and independence of mind amidst the pressure to push ahead with gay wedding celebrations?
Though the C of E’s bishops, deeply divided amongst themselves, are delaying the introduction of stand-alone services to bless same-sex couples, which might effectively be gay wedding celebrations, the prospect of them happening is causing turmoil and division within the Church.
In December last yr, the Telegraph newspaper reported that C of E conservatives are gearing as much as ordain their very own ministers in protest against same-sex blessings. The paper reported: “The Rev William Taylor, a number one figure within the Church’s evangelical wing, said that traditionalists plan to organise unofficial ordinations next yr.”
Taylor, Rector of St Helen’s Bishopsgate within the City of London, had told the Pastor’s Heart podcast within the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia, that a bunch of conservative ministers “can be ordained in 2025 needless to say”.
The Telegraph described the move as representing “a significant escalation throughout the Church’s deepening divide over gay relationships because only bishops – the vast majority of whom support same-sex blessings – are allowed to ordain ministers.
“The unofficial ordinations are expected to trigger a furious response from the Church of England’s hierarchy, which can refuse to recognise them as valid.”
The Church stays under great political and media pressure to launch the stand-alone services and to permit clergy to enter into same-sex civil marriages. But if Synod members can defy the pressure to go for the total outsourcing of safeguarding for good reasons, why not show the identical rationality over same-sex blessings and avoid an entire load of trouble?
Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
