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It's 43 years since the BBC last went " Nationwide " but we fear it's going to be at least another 43 years before we see true independent safeguarding, not only in the CofE but across the Faith sector. Recently, Sam Carling MP spoke in parliament about mandatory reporting of safeguarding concerns in the context of his personal experience with Jehovah's Witnesses . That caused us to look at their website , where we could find no reference to what we understand as safeguarding

This is a comment piece NOT a place to report an actual concern. If someone is in immediate danger, ring 999 and tell the Police. To find your local safeguarding team, search for your nearest church at www.achurchnearyou.com where you should find Safeguarding contact details or click the Safeguarding menu item on their home page which will eventually take you to your diocesan team. Here's a suggested experiment: Try to get ready to report a concern about something in your

A depressing part of attending the recent General Synod debate was the dawning realisation that the expensive, thorough and prescriptive report, Future of Church Safeguarding, produced by Baroness Jay 2 years ago has been all but forgotten, if members ever read it in the first place. After a year, General Synod decided that one of its key recommendations - making safeguarding investigation, etc, independent, was 'not what we want'. But a small step was taken at the recent Syn

Can Faithful Responsibility help the Safeguarding Structures Programme?

When looking at the issues around Grace I started to consider in more detail the questions of appropriate sanctions and how to decide what is appropriate in what circumstances. This is something that has not been properly covered in our own proposals and we don't think it has in either current guidance or the SSB proposal. This is a brief summary of a much larger document that I'm working on to define the rules that our proposed National Ministry Council would work to. I'll

"God loves you. Unconditionally. No matter what you've done." (extract from sermon in 10,000 UK churches every Sunday but taken out of context) " It is impossible for those ... who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. " (extract from Hebrews 6:4-6   NIVUK but taken out of context) The inquiry into the case of David Tudor is due to report any day (having been due to report months ago, for such is the nature of inquiries.) That inquiry came after a decision

The release of the Safeguarding Structures Board's report to Synod (SSB) has reminded me that I intended to look at how Faithful Responsibility (FR) might have helped prevent or at least mitigate the harms caused in past cases. I've therefore taken the opportunity to analyse both proposals against a selection of recent cases that cover some of the major criticisms of church processes. I will add more as I analyse them. I look at the case from the perspective of a member of

We know from our own experience that it is very difficult to get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from even the most intensive journalistic investigation. Compared to the resources available to Public Inquiries, journalism is necessarily constrained by privacy laws and commercial budgets and timescales. Some errors and omissions are inevitable but we cannot think of a public scandal that has been unearthed by any other means. The courage of the victims

Who is actually responsible for Safeguarding in the Church of England? "Everyone!" is we trust the reply of all those involved in its work and ministry, but what's the legal situation? Who carries the can - individual clergy & bishops? corporate bodies such as synods or councils? national or local bodies? The Charity Commission is focussed on "Trustees" but which Trustees and at which level? A recent case has highlighted for us an issue that is going to be hard to grapple

From being sacked for highlighting a faulty component and dangerous working practices in the production of domestic ovens, through developing a simple yet effective process to eliminate risk in drive-by-wire systems, to running my own troubleshooting business, for over 50 years I have been deeply involved in seeking ways to eliminate risk.  For the past 27 years of those 50, I’ve also been an NSM priest, serving mainly as vicar of single-village parishes, observing the growin

BACKGROUND TO CONVERSATION When we published our original report, we included this proposed change to Canon Law (my emphasis in bold) : "The Seal of Confession: Repealing Canon 113 (1603), which currently upholds the seal of confession, and replacing it with a provision that clearly obligates clergy to report safeguarding concerns raised in the context of confession. This exemption would ensure that safeguarding issues, especially those related to abuse or harm, cannot be ke

A. RESOURCES Diocesan Safeguarding teams provide a wide variety of services to their individual dioceses. The Jay report comments on the variation in staffing across dioceses but we thought it deserved some numbers. Like Jay, we found a wide spread in both staffing and provision of service across dioceses, but could find no discernible pattern relating to worshipping community numbers, diocesan finances or geographical area. This chart shows diocesan resources plotted again