Charity Commission Warning to CofE

This morning the Charity Commission issued a warning to the Church of England’s Archbishops Council that the independent safeguarding structures agreed at General Synod in February should be implemented 18 months from now – a year sooner than the plans had originally suggested.

I wholeheartedly support the announcement from the Charity Commission. It is somewhat shameful that we are suggesting that we cannot implement many of these changes much sooner than had been originally suggested. We must reinstate trust and integrity back into the CofE and we cannot do this if we are not demonstrating any ability to take robust, tangible and solid action to support our safeguarding processes and procedures. Setting lengthy time frames does nothing more than suggest that we are not serious about change. Yes, all new procedures and processes need to be delivered in a measured, and timely fashion, and, of course, they must meet the needs of the organisation, but 2 ½ years after their agreement is simply, as I have said, shameful. We must take action today to ensure that we can meet the expectation set of us by the Commission and exceed that time frame. We must now work to deliver these changes asap.

I believe that the CofE must set up a dedicated unit to understand and then drive forward these changes – if we don’t, we simply fail the victims of abuse and impede those victims who have yet to come forward, from having faith in our processes, and instil a fear we won’t take them seriously.

For my part, I will continue to serve my Deanery and Parishes with Safeguarding at the forefront of all we do.

With Best Wishes

Andrew+