Questions for next week’s meeting of the CofE General Synod were issued on Friday and will be taken on the afternoon of Monday 10 February 2025. Questions Q153 and 154 [*] mark an important step towards greater transparency of the discussions at meetings of the House of Bishops, an issue discussed by Andrew Atherstone in his post The House of Bishops of the Church of England and public transparency.
[*] Question Q153: The Revd Andrew Atherstone (Oxford) to ask the Chair of the House of Bishops
In May 2024, the House of Bishops committed itself to “maximum transparency”, including the publication of its agendas (before each meeting takes place) and its minutes, as outlined in GS Misc 1387. What processes are now in place to ensure the regular publication of these papers in an expeditious manner?
The Archbishop of York to reply as Vice-Chair of the House of Bishops:
A Thank you for the question and I am grateful for your persistence and help on the important question of how we can build trust through transparency in the work of the House of Bishops.
The minutes of the House of Bishops meetings are now available on the website at House of Bishops | The Church of England [scroll down]. I recognise there has been a delay to publishing the minutes, but in future these should now appear in a timely manner after they have been agreed by the House. Regarding the publication of the agenda – we are aware of further work needed to complete the points set out in GS Misc 1387 and will be working with colleagues on that over the next few months.
Question Q154: Mrs Mary Durlacher (Chelmsford) to ask the Chair of the House of Bishops
GS Misc 1387 (Transparency of the House of Bishops) which came to Synod in July of last year had a number of recommendations aimed at ‘increasing the openness and transparency of the work of the House’. For each of the four Recommendations, please confirm if the recommendation has been actioned and from what date, and if not, what is the cause of delay and an estimated timetable for implementation?
The Archbishop of York to reply as Vice-Chair of the House of Bishops:
Thank you for your question. The information is available in the table below
| Recommendation | Complete | Commentary | |
| 1 | “Minutes of all meetings of the House of Bishops should be published…once they have been approved at the subsequent meeting” | YES | Available at [House of Bishops | The Church of England]. |
| 2 | “Formal legal advice…or written advice from the Faith and Order Commission should be provided to the General Synod as an annex to the relevant GS paper”. | YES | See for example annex to GS 2378 and GS Misc 1407. |
| “Agenda for each House of Bishops meeting will be published with the circulation of papers” | NO | Further work is needed to be done to make this happen. | |
| 3 | “The House of Bishops should continue to meet without public attendance and should amend its should amend its standing orders to be honest that it is doing so” | IN PART | Except for September 2024, the House of Bishops has met in private. The Standing Orders have not yet been amended because of pressures of other legislative business coming before General Synod. |
| 4 | “The House of Bishops will propose changes to Canon H 3 and potentially other legislation to provide for acting diocesan bishops to vote at meetings of the House and General Synod” | NO | The proposed changes to Canon H3 have not yet been actioned because of pressures of other legislative business coming before General Synod. |
Andrew’s question at Q153, together with Mary Durlacher’s related question at Q154, are placed right at the end of the Questions Notice Paper, so it’s unlikely that either question will be reached during the Questions session today (10 February) to enable supplementary questions to be asked. A question which should be asked (and answered) is:
Who was responsible for the delay in publishing the minutes and for the failure to implement the decision of the House of Bishops (recorded in paper GS 1387, presented to Synod in July 2024) to agree the recommendation of the House of Bishops Transparency Group that “Minutes of all meetings of the House of Bishops should be published on the relevant section of the Church of England website once they have been approved at the subsequent meeting.” ?
Further, Archbishop Stephen has not answered that aspect of Mary’s question which asked “from what date” had the four recommendations of the transparency group been actioned. The table provided by way of answer has a column ‘Complete’, with just the word ‘YES’ in relation to the publication of HoB minutes.
The minutes themselves are revealing.
[1] Those for ’15 July March 2024′ [sic], [HB(24)M5], record at para 1.3: “The House considered the draft minutes of the meetings of 15-17 May and 12 June (HB(24)M3 and M4), noting that these would be published in line with the commitments in GS 1387. Members identified a number of areas where the minutes contained errors and omissions. The Secretariat would clear the revised minutes with the Standing Committee before publication.”
[2] Those for the October meeting [HB(24)M7], 3½ months after the July General Synod when Synod was told (in GS 1387) that the HoB had agreed to the recommendation of the Transparency Group to publish the minutes on the CofE website “once they have been approved at the subsequent meeting”, approved the minutes of the two previous meetings (15 July and 18 September), but then record at para 1.3: “The House of Bishops Standing Committee would meet on 6 November to discuss the question of what form of minutes would be published, in line with the decisions of the House communicated to the General Synod.” There was no such qualification in GS 1387. At para 2.1, the following is recorded: “Members noted that it was important that the House made progress on transparency of minutes before the General Synod in February.” But why any procrastination?
[3] The December meeting minutes [HB(24)M8] simply record that the minutes of the October meeting HB(24)M7 were approved, with no reference to any report from the Standing Committee.
We don’t yet have the minutes of the 20th January meeting when, presumably, the December minutes were approved, but it does appear that those minutes that have just been published were published in consequence of the questions asked by Andrew and Mary, with no apology, let alone an explanation, for the acknowledged delay.