The Charity Commission for England and Wales has responded to my open letter of 20 November to its chair and chief executive. My letter asked for a statutory investigative inquiry int the Archbishops’ Council, or an explanation as to why why their safeguarding failings are insufficient for them to do so.

This is their unsatisfatory response.

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23 December 2024

Dear Mr Drake

The Archbishop’s Council and Safeguarding in the Church of England

Thank you for your letter of 20 November 2024 addressed to our Chief Executive, David Holdsworth and Chair, Orlando Fraser KC. Your correspondence has been passed to me to respond to in line with our usual processes.

We have considered the points you have raised and understand that you have two primary questions:

• Has the Archbishop’s Council as a charity submitted a serious incident report to the Commission in relation to the publication of the Makin Review?

I confirm that the Archbishops’ Council has submitted a serious incident report to the Commission in relation to the publication of the Makin Review.

• Why has the Charity Commission not taken more robust regulatory action, up to and including the opening of a statutory inquiry into the charity as a result of safeguarding failures within the Church?

Firstly, like many members of the public we were upset to read of the failures outlined in the Makin Review. I would like to assure you that we take safeguarding duties of charities and their trustees very seriously and expect all charity trustees to ensure their charities have appropriate measures and processes in place to keep people safe and to take action when incidents occur, or concerns are raised.

Whilst not all the Church of England falls within our jurisdiction those parts that do are subject to Commission regulation. For example, it is only within the last 12 months that all Cathedrals in England are now registered charities and have come within the jurisdiction of the Commission. As part of that process, we required the introduction of improved safeguarding measures in cathedrals which made the most significant changes in a generation to be made to historic governance and other structural arrangements within the cathedrals to address historic weaknesses in safeguarding.

However, we are also clear that the Makin Review and other recent safeguarding reports have identified complex wider church structures and historic constitutional arrangements that could potentially be an impediment or obstacle to trustees in parts of the Church which are registered charities being able to effectively fulfil their legal and safeguarding duties. I would like to reassure you that we are engaging with church leaders on the recommendations from the Makin Review to ensure that any areas that need addressing are done so swiftly.

I hope you will appreciate that whilst we currently have live regulatory engagement with the Church it would be inappropriate for me to go into further detail at this time to avoid prejudicing any future action we may need to take.

You have specifically asked why the Commission has not taken more robust regulatory action at this stage. It may be helpful to explain that when concerns are raised about a charity, we assess the information on a case-by-case basis to decide if there is a regulatory issue and what steps to take. All concerns are assessed against our Regulatory and Risk Framework.

We are currently engaging on a regulatory basis with the Church and, rest assured, we will use whatever powers we may consider necessary to fulfil our statutory duties.

I hope that this is helpful.

Yours Sincerely
[Redacted]
Senior Case Manager

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So, the good news is that the Charity Commission is “engaging with church leaders on the recommendations from the Makin Review” (why not on any other of the many reviews the Church has failed to act on) and that the Commission”currently ha[s] live regulatory engagement with the Church”.

Who are these church leaders that the Charity Commission is engaging in?

• The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby?
  
  He steps down on Monday after resigning over a safeguarding failure.
  
  
• The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell?
  
  He is a known liar on safeguarding matters who has been caught out telling untruths and mis-speaking too many times for it to be accidental. I wouldn’t trust him to tell me it had been snowing if if was very cold and there was six foot of soft white stuff on the ground.
  
  
• The Secretary General of the Archbishops’ Council, William Nye?
  
  Again, he is another person whose hand has been on the tiller of many of the national church’s safeguarding fiascos – and his personal involvement in the direct retraumatisation of the ISB-11 through the way the Independent Safeguarding Board was terminated is well documented by the WIlkinson Review.

There comes a time when investigations and inquiries should not be done in secret. As my open letter to the Commission set out, concerns about the Archbishops’ Council’s handling of safeguarding matters have been sent to the Commission for years. All of these have been ignored.

The Charity Commission is a statutory body charged with upholding the integrity of charities. Why has it continually refused to do so in the case of the Archbishops’ Council.

If the Charity Commission had done its job properly and held the Archbishops’ Council to account, the current fiasco could have been dealt with and appropriate safeguarding mesaures put into place.

As the Charity Commission is still refusing to properly hold the Archbishops’ Council to account, now is the time for a full public statutory inquiry into the continuing, ongoing and serious safeguarding failures within the Church of England.