Meeting of the National Safeguarding Panel, November 2023

At this meeting, Kashmir Garton, independent member with expertise in offender management, took up her role as Interim Chair. Jane Chevous, Director of Survivors Voices and a survivor representative, took up her role as Interim Vice Chair.

A meeting had been held with William Nye (Archbishops’ Council) regarding the appointment of a permanent NSP chair. His advice was to wait until Prof Jay’s review had been published as this may recommend fundamental structural changes, however he accepted the wish of the Panel for a permanent chair. The Panel reaffirmed that the interim posts should be for no more than 6 months whilst the arrangements for the recruitment of the new chair took place.

Hopes of Interim Chair and Vice Chair

The Chair shared that safeguarding and public protection has been the central focus of her career in the Probation Service for over 30 years and she was keen to see the church as a safe place where survivors and offenders and the public can find hope and healing. Her vision for the Panel is to build on Meg’s legacy and for each Panel member to bring their skills and expertise to enable the Church’s safeguarding practice to be the best it can be. As a critical friend, the hope was to influence and make recommendations on new developments but also to look at the impact and learning of safeguarding policies within our parishes as this is where it really matters.

The Vice Chair stated that she was pleased to work as a team with the Chair. They will seek to breakdown some of the difficulties that arise in safeguarding and the tendency for things in the history of the church to form into adversarial silos. This was not a time for massive changes as we are uncertain of our future role but we need to build small steps to progress what Meg Munn has done scrutinising and bringing all of our expertise to develop good practice – not just to scrutinise where things are going wrong.

NST Director’s Report

The Director advised that NST was developing a strategic five-year plan which will help to assess the impact and outcomes of the work of the NST. The NST has produced many products, but it was important to reflect on their impact and how they were making a difference.

Discussion also covered revisions to the Clergy Conduct Measure, the Managing Allegations Policy, and the need for trauma-informed training. The NSP also discussed the use of apologies in safeguarding matters and noted the lack of consistency across dioceses and parishes.

NSP Terms of Reference and communication

A sub-group of members was formed to refresh the Terms of Reference for the Panel to ensure it addressed the recent developments. In addition, the job descriptions for the Chair and Vice Chair will be reviewed and finalised following member feedback. It was agreed that the work of the NSP should continue to be shared online as a blog and this would be done jointly between the Chair and the Vice Chair. The annual report would be completed in the new year to share the journey of the Panel and evidence its impact and outcome where possible.

Learning Together Working Group

The Panel discussed draft Terms of Reference for this group which was set up in response to previous scrutiny of survivor engagement to build trust and break down barriers by providing a neutral forum for safeguarding advisors and survivors to come and learn together. The aims were to provide a safe and compassionate space for Church of England survivors and staff (including Church leaders) to learn together, and to organise a one-off event where good practice models of engagement and co-production could be shared with dioceses and with the National Safeguarding Team, with the aim of improved engagement with survivors.

ISB and Wilkinson Review

Members welcomed the willingness of the Archbishops’ Council representatives to discuss with the Panel the lessons learnt and consequential impact of the decisions in relation to the ISB on survivors and stakeholders. The Archbishops’ Council suggested this happened after the publication of the Wilkinson report. The Panel requested in the interim an update on the measures offered to survivors who were previously engaged with the ISB and the response to their request for mediation.

Jay Review

Some Panel members had individually engaged in the Jay review consultation process. The Jay review team were approached for a meeting with NSP but responded that they did not engage with groups and instead offered their online survey. The Panel felt a survey would not present the collective voice of members, consequently it was agreed to submit a letter setting out the views of the Panel to inform their consultation.

Scrutiny topics

Scrutiny topics were discussed for the forthcoming meetings. The next meeting will look at the implementation of the Responding Well Policy.