Comments on: Too little, too late: Charity Commission reminds General Synod of charity trustee’s safeguarding duties https://churchabuse.uk/2025/01/27/too-little-too-late-charity-commission-reminds-general-synod-of-charity-trustees-safeguarding-duties/ Highlight continuing safeguarding failures by the Church of England and its Archbishops’ Council Wed, 29 Jan 2025 17:07:12 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 By: Fr Duddleswell https://churchabuse.uk/2025/01/27/too-little-too-late-charity-commission-reminds-general-synod-of-charity-trustees-safeguarding-duties/#comment-370 Wed, 29 Jan 2025 17:07:12 +0000 https://churchabuse.uk/?p=380#comment-370 I’m a priest who sits as a tribunal judge (panellist) for several of the professional regulators. They aren’t perfect, but they most certainly are independent of the registrant’s employer. In several, the body that organises and oversees the tribunal is a semi-detached arm of the regulatory body, so there is even some degree of independence from the other functions of that regulator – education and training standards oversight and maintaining the register. I’m firmly convinced that the only way in which the C of E can hope to have a disciplinary tribunal process that is in any way just and which operates ‘without fear or favour’ is when it is wrestled from the control of the denominational and diocesan hierarchies and the national church institutions.

Two key aspects of that independence in the professional regulators is that panels tend to include a lay member – someone who has never been a registrant or would be eligible to be a registrant – and they have a legal adviser who is not the same person (or even from the same firm) contracted to provide the legal services to the regulator to shape, investigate and/or present the case against the registrant. My view is the term ‘lay’ when applied to clergy discipline should be someone who is not a member of the C of E or has attended a C of E church within a defined period of time. Anything that bursts the collusive bubble of the ‘small world’ of influence is what’s now needed.

]]> By: Opinion – 29 January 2025 | Thinking Anglicans https://churchabuse.uk/2025/01/27/too-little-too-late-charity-commission-reminds-general-synod-of-charity-trustees-safeguarding-duties/#comment-368 Wed, 29 Jan 2025 11:47:57 +0000 https://churchabuse.uk/?p=380#comment-368 […] Gavin Drake Church Abuse Too little, too late: Charity Commission reminds General Synod of charity trustee’s safeguardi… […]

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