Bishop Joanne Woolway Grenfell, the Church of England’s lead safeguarding bishop writes for the July edition of Civil Society magazine on safeguarding governance. The article, published today, and reproduced in full below, was written before last week’s General Synod but includes a link to the debate and vote on next steps on independence.

A survivor told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) that ‘a dog collar is like a key to everyone’s front room in the parish.’ The high level of trust expected of Church leaders must be accompanied by a high level of responsibility and accountability, underpinned by good governance.

The harrowing accounts of abuse at the Church of England’s three IICSA hearings in 2018 and 2019 and through the Truth Project were a stark reminder of how the Church has failed in the past by allowing those in positions of trust to abuse. While the Inquiry did commend current aspects of the Church’s development of safeguarding practice, including independent audits which continue to critique and commend good practice, it also highlighted how the Church had responded badly to survivors and victims. Furthermore, it exposed how the right structures and governance were not in place to ensure accountability at all levels of the Church.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was called to give evidence twice. He gave a heartfelt apology to victims and survivors and restated the Church’s commitment to change. As the current lead bishop for safeguarding in the Church of England, my role is to support the whole church to make that change a reality, focussing on culture transformation, transparent communication, and good governance.

Since 2015 there has been a close working relationship between the newly created National Safeguarding Team (NST) and safeguarding leads (Diocesan Safeguarding Advisers) in all 42 dioceses. New 2016 Regulations ensured that DSAs are now all professionally qualified. There is a standardised mandatory national training programme for all clergy with thousands completing modules every year. A national survivor engagement strategy ensures survivors inform our work. Policies are carefully developed, and regularly reviewed and updated. An audit programme, currently contracted to INEQE Safeguarding Group, ensures that every diocese receives independent scrutiny of its work. A national redress scheme for survivors of church-related abuse is currently being developed which will include, alongside financial compensation, the offer of therapeutic, spiritual, and emotional support. Making redress also means acknowledging wrongdoing on the part of the Church and offering apology.

All our 16,000 churches across the country have volunteer parish safeguarding officers who are trained, and their contact details are readily available, usually on posters in the porch or noticeboard. Each one connects to a diocesan safeguarding lead, to whom they must refer any concerns or allegations. Many diocesan officers are now supervised regionally, ensuring better and more consistent decision making. In addition, safer recruitment – of clergy, office holders, staff, and volunteers – is a key national policy for all churches and dioceses.

But our operational and governance structures are complicated and have grown quickly as we have responded to this fast-changing field of work. Each diocese is a separate legal entity, and while we have legislation (canon law) to ensure that safeguarding polices (codes of practice) are followed, we know that practice is sometimes variable, resourcing uneven, and cases can take too long to resolve.

For us, as for any institution, the aim of safeguarding governance must be to make the church safer, whilst recognizing and remembering those who have already been harmed; the victims and survivors of Church-related abuse.

A year ago, the review into the Church’s handling of allegations against the late Revd Trevor Devamanikkam (relating to sexual abuse of a 16-year-old in 1984 and later disclosures to senior figures) was published. Its aim was to identify failings and any good practice in those events, in order to ensure a safer environment for all. It made a number of recommendations which included proposals about how lessons learnt reviews should be handled and how the Church must respond better to victims and survivors. It also set out the need for clear guidance for clergy and all those who work and volunteer for the Church about what they should do and from whom they should take advice if they are informed about any allegation of abuse.

In response, specific pieces of work have been undertaken: the General Synod, our governing body, last summer approved a new safeguarding practice review policy, and existing guidance on managing allegations is currently being revised.

An effective policy and practice scrutiny body, the National Safeguarding Panel (NSP), had been in place since the NST started work, chaired by an independent member. However, since IICSA made its recommendations, the Church has become aware of the need for a greater degree of audit and scrutiny, including input into policy development, examination of the efficacy of safeguarding structures and practice, and an appeal function in cases where there is dissatisfaction about the Church’s handling of a case or a review.

In response to this awareness, the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) was set up in 2021 by the Archbishops’ Council.[1] The intention was that the ISB should work in two phases, firstly ensuring appropriate distance between the ISB and the Church, and then designing its future structure and work. The latter was about creating an arms-length body to oversee safeguarding in the church, advise on relationships between current safeguarding bodies, and hold the Church to account for any failures around practice, structures, attitudes or processes, including responding to grievances from victims and survivors.

A range of issues around scope, remit, information handling, and relationships frustrated the early work of the ISB; its original chair resigned, and, in June 2023, the contracts of the two remaining ISB members were terminated by the Archbishops’ Council. Although the Council believed that it had reached a point in terms of trust and confidence which meant it could no longer continue, its decision was understandably met negatively by those victims and survivors with whom the ISB had begun conversations about case reviews. An independent interim commissioner was subsequently appointed to lead this work.

In order to reflect on its handling of the ISB termination, and in order to discern a way forward for independent safeguarding scrutiny, the Council subsequently commissioned two safeguarding reports: from barrister Sarah Wilkinson to look at lessons to be learnt, and from Professor Alexis Jay, former chair of IICSA, to provide proposed ways forward on independence. Both reports have now been published.[2]

The Wilkinson report was hard hitting, and clear on what went wrong with all parties involved in the ISB. One of the report’s recommendations was for trustees to undertake trauma awareness training to enable them to be better trauma-informed in their approach to safeguarding matters. Another was to ensure, with any future scrutiny body, a more careful approach from the outset to the establishment of its governance structures.

The Jay report contains recommendations for independence in both operational safeguarding and safeguarding scrutiny/oversight (Organisations A and B). It also contains other proposals around definitions.

There are strong views from every direction about what we should do next. Responding to both reports at our February General Synod meeting, just three days after we had received the Jay report, the Archbishop of Canterbury said that ‘we must move ahead as fast as is wise.’

We currently have a response group made up of representatives from various parts of the Church, including victims and survivors, and experts from external organizations, with an independent co-chair, trying to do just that. We are looking at models from other sectors and locations of independence and outsourcing, for example from banking, the Anglican Church of Australia, and the Roman Catholic Church. We are trying to understand how scrutiny and audit functions might best be set up, retaining responsibility and good institutional values while avoiding any possibility of the Church marking its own homework.

The remit of the Group is to oversee this work, advising on recommendations that must be well evidenced, and that come from deep and wide engagement. It is this wider and more inclusive engagement which is providing our work with its richest insights. We have committed to listen to the voices of those who experience first hand our current safeguarding systems and processes and who have often felt powerless to speak of change. Balancing the needs of such diverse stakeholders is challenging and we have tailored our approach to get the best out of every engagement opportunity, offering ‘drop in’ focus groups and one-to-one conversations, as well as ensuring good governance of our work through regular, formal Response Group meetings.

As the Church co-chair of that group, my view is that we need a solution that builds on existing foundations for safeguarding that are working well, while taking heed of the issues raised by Professor Jay, particularly around consistency, timeliness, and accountability. We must always acknowledge and address the lack of trust felt by those we have harmed.

We need to hear the considerable professional concern about outsourcing safeguarding completely, along the lines of the Organisation A model recommended by Professor Jay, appreciating that many feel that this could lead to a loss of broad cultural buy-in, which should involve every member of Church taking responsibility for good safeguarding culture. We also need to be serious about hearing and responding to the calls for substantial change, even in the face of internal resistance.

A further consideration is of the overlap between safeguarding and clergy conduct matters. Not all matters of professional standards relate to safeguarding, but they often end up in the inboxes of safeguarding professionals because of the lack of clergy HR resource to deal with them. The Clergy Conduct Measure (replacing the Clergy Discipline Measure) may bring a greater degree of clarity around policy and process in this area, but it will not on its own increase capacity or competence in this tricky area. Such work is outside of our remit, but we need to note it as a dependency.

We may not be able to achieve full consensus, but we can make sure that, within a realistic timescale, we have done the best possible work in terms of both consultation and research to enable our governance bodies to make wise decisions about appropriate ways forward. We came back with some detailed findings and feedback to our General Synod in July aware that the building of new and secure foundations for better safeguarding must be a commitment for all in the Church.