Jay Report on Safeguarding in Church of England

On 21 February 2024, Professor Alexis Jay CBE issued a Press Release on her independent Report into the future of safeguarding in the Church of England. Below are reproduced the Press Release from Professor Jay, extracts from the report, and links from the Church of England Press Release.


Jay Report Press Release

Report into the future of safeguarding in the Church of England

In her report, The Future of Church Safeguarding, Professor Jay makes a series of recommendations to establish full independence of safeguarding operations and scrutiny in the Church of England. To address widespread shortcomings and restore trust and confidence, Professor Jay recommends the establishment of two separate bodies independent of the Church:

  1. One responsible for delivering all Church safeguarding activities
  2. One responsible for providing scrutiny and oversight of safeguarding

Both bodies would be registered charities in order to receive charitable funding from the Church for their activities. Both bodies would be separate from the Church with their relationship underpinned by legally binding collaboration agreements.

Professor Jay has concluded that safeguarding in the Church falls below the standards expected and set in secular organisations, with weaknesses including an inconsistent approach to guidance and supervision, poor data collection, inequity in funding and lack of a uniform complaints system.

Key Recommendations

The key recommendations within the report are:

  • the creation of the two independent safeguarding charities to deliver operational safeguarding and scrutiny of it
  • legally binding requirements for church institutions to refer all safeguarding cases to these new charities
  • the mandatory implementation of safeguarding decisions made by these charities
  • funding by the Church but complete structural separation to ensure safeguarding is truly independent

In developing these recommendations, Professor Jay engaged over 130 individuals with experience of C of E safeguarding, including abuse survivors, clergy, volunteers, and professionals. The report represents an evidence-based roadmap for placing safeguarding on a trusted, consistent footing.

The recommendations within Professor Jay’s report are underpinned by 35 pages of legal advice authored by Bates Wells Braithwaite LLP, above. This advice sets out how new safeguarding arrangements proposed in the report can best be achieved. It also sets out how a new law might look which would create the two key new duties on everyone in the Church:

  1. to refer all safeguarding matters to these independent bodies and
  2. to implement all the decisions to these bodies.

The welfare and well-being of people who participated in the Future of Church Safeguarding Programme was very important to us. 

Participants were welcome to tell us as little or as much as they liked during their engagement with the Programme. Any information shared with us remained confidential and was anonymised before being used so there has been no risk of participants or anyone else being identified.

More details about our process for safeguarding the welfare of participants, which was not linked to the Church of England, is available here.


Extracts from the Jay Report and Recommendations

Trust and Confidence

“3. There are conflicts of interest in several aspects of safeguarding, which are not openly acknowledged or addressed in policy, procedures or practice. This serves to further undermine the trust of many of those who need to engage with Church safeguarding.

4. Safeguarding within the Church is flawed and cannot be sufficiently improved whilst it remains within Church oversight. It needs to fundamentally change in order to restore the confidence of victims, survivors and others, including clergy. This can only be achieved by being delivered by a fully independent body.”

Faith issues

“16. We heard many firmly-held views that being a Christian should be a prerequisite for the appointment of a safeguarding professional in the Church. We do not agree. The only criteria for selection should be relevant qualifications, experience and evidence of high professional standards.

17. We also heard frequent references to the need for safeguarding in the Church to be rooted in theology or scripture. As a basis for decision-making on allegations or concerns about child and adult protection, this is inappropriate and does not reflect statutory guidance.

18. Some people believed that independent safeguarding would mean that the Church and its institutions would see no need to take any further responsibility for children and vulnerable adults with whom they come into contact. We find that surprising, given the express moral purpose and duty of the Church for the protection of these groups. The Church will not be absolved of its responsibilities to identify and report any concerns about safeguarding to an independent body. Indeed, it could use the opportunity to voluntarily introduce its own form of Mandatory Reporting, ahead of legislation.”

Recommendations

1. The General Synod of the Church of England should pass a Measure, with Parliamentary approval and Royal Assent, to create two overarching statutory duties which will apply to the Church of England as an institution, members of any council, synod or body and to all personnel, ordained or lay, remunerated or voluntary. The duties will comprise: (a). a duty to refer all safeguarding matters to the Independent bodies. (b). a duty to implement all the decisions of those independent bodies.

2. The Church of England should appoint an Independent organisation to oversee the establishment of a new fully independent charitable body (organisation A) for the delivery of the safeguarding operations of the Church of England. Scrutiny of Church safeguarding should also be made fully independent, either by the establishment of a new independent charitable body or by an existing independent charity. Structural separation is essential to provide fully independent safeguarding.

3. The Church of England should appoint an independent human resources organisation to assist in the establishment of the new organisations and to ensure that there is full consideration of the transfer, where appropriate, to those organisations of staff currently employed by the Church in safeguarding positions.

4. Any complaint, concern or enquiry regarding safeguarding shall be referred to organisation A at the first available opportunity.

5. Any safeguarding recommendation made by organisation A or B shall be implemented and carried into effect by the person or body to whom it is directed within the timescale prescribed.

6. The following shall be deemed to constitute misconduct for the purposes of section 8 of the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003: (a). failure or delay in referring any complaint, concern or enquiry to organisation A or B under (4) above; (b). failure to follow any code of practice or any safeguarding recommendation made by organisations A or B under (5) above.

7. The Church of England should agree a separate grant agreement with organisations A and B that provides for the payment of a grant to both organisations to ensure that they are able to fulfil their functions effectively.

8. The Church of. England should agree to a review of the grant agreement within six months to a year and as necessary thereafter to ensure that organisations A and B have the resources necessary to fulfil their functions. This is essential given the difficulty in accurately estimating, at the outset, the funds that will be required.

9. To ensure that the role of organisations A and B is clear and consistent, the definition of child and adult safeguarding must comply with the statutory definitions.

10. Organisations A and B should use the guidance relating to emotional and psychological abuse pertaining to vulnerable adults and children rather than spiritual abuse in all guidance and training and to determine cases referred under the measure in (1) above.

11. An independent appointments panel should be established to appoint the first board of trustees, including the Chairs of organisations A and B.

12. Independent legal advice, separate from established church legal advisors, should be appointed to provide legal support during the establishment of organisations A and B.

13, Organisations A and B should secure independent legal advice separate from Church legal advisors once established.


Church of England Press Release

Publication of Jay Review

21/02/2024

Archbishops welcome publication of Future of Church Safeguarding Report

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have welcomed the publication today of the Future of Church Safeguarding report from Professor Alexis Jay, with an outline of next steps for how the Church responds.

Professor Jay, the former Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, IICSA, agreed in July to develop proposals around independence in safeguarding in the Church.

The work was commissioned following the termination of the contracts of the original Independent Safeguarding Board, ISB.

[…]

Next steps

  • The report will initially be considered and debated at General Synod this Saturday (February 24) with a presentation from Professor Jay and subsequent debate on the following motion: ‘That this Synod thank Sarah Wilkinson and Alexis Jay for their work and request that the process set out in paragraph 12 of GS 2336 for forming a response to, and considering any necessary implementation of, their recommendations be pursued as a matter of priority.’
  • The General Synod will now be invited to agree that there should be an engagement phase across the Church including with victims and survivors which will be led by the Response Group
  • The Response Group will oversee wider engagement and further reflection regarding both Reports in order to brief the National Safeguarding Steering Group (NSSG) and then advise the House of Bishops, and the Archbishops’ Council. Following this, the response to these reports will be presented to General Synod for debate.
  • Work to implement the recommendations made by IICSA will continue alongside the Church’s consideration of the Jay report. This includes the planned consultation concerning the implementation of a regional model of supervision and quality assurance for Diocesan and Cathedral Safeguarding Officers (IICSA Recommendation 1) and the Independent Safeguarding Audit Programme (IICSA Recommendation 8). IICSA 1 and 8 – Regional model pilot

More information

Finding support


David Pocklington and Frank Cranmer

Cite this article as: David Pocklington, "Jay Report on Safeguarding in Church of England" in Law & Religion UK, 21 February 2024, https://lawandreligionuk.com/2024/02/21/jay-review-on-safeguarding-in-church-of-england/

 

 

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