If you don’t want to read the full 1,800 words, go to the 300-word TL;DR summary

During last month’s General Synod, I published several points about different debates. I held off on the key debate about independent safeguarding. That wasn’t because I didn’t care about it, but because I cared about it too much to rush a response. I have now had time to consider where the Church of England is on its move to independence in safeguarding, and these are my thoughts.

When the Church of England’s Archbishops’ Council sacked its “Independent” Safeguarding Board (ISB) in June 2023, the Archbishops’ Council promised swift action to put something better in its place. It commissioned Professor Alexis Jay to set out what independence would have to mean if the Church was to rebuild even a fraction of the trust it has lost.

The General Synod was not given the option to debate Professor Jay’s proposals in full. Instead, in February 2025, it debated “options” put forward by an Archbishops’ Council committee. After the February 2025 debate and vote, the synod received an interim report in July 2025 and a further update in February this year.

And yet, after all that, the Church of England is still only able to talk in generalities about “direction of travel”.

That phrase has become a comfort blanket. It sounds purposeful. It feels dynamic. It allows speeches about momentum and culture change. It also enables a familiar institutional manoeuvre: kick the can down the road — make promises that it is “moving forward” while moving the decisive action point further away.

The synod that couldn’t decide what “independence” meant

The February 2025 debate ought to have been a watershed. It came in the wake of Justin Welby’s resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury following the Makin review and the John Smyth scandal — an episode that intensified public scrutiny of safeguarding failures and institutional evasions.

Moving the motion, the Bishop of Stepney, Joanne Grenfell, framed the debate as being about building “the best foundations to support the work of our excellent safeguarding professional colleagues and volunteers”.

The chamber then filled with tributes to local safeguarding staff and volunteers. Again and again, bishops and members praised diocesan safeguarding advisers, diocesan teams and parish safeguarding officers.

The problem is not the gratitude. Most people in safeguarding roles will recognise the cost and strain of doing that work. The problem is the cognitive dissonance, which the synod never quite confronts.

If safeguarding in the Church of England is being delivered by “excellent safeguarding professional colleagues and volunteers”, why does GS 2429 still acknowledge that “many survivors do not have trust in the Church of England to properly manage safeguarding matters”?

If the system is so improved, why does the Church itself concede that “safeguarding complaints processes vary widely across dioceses and cathedrals”, and that this “undermines trust and leads to delays and confusion”?

You cannot reconcile those statements by congratulating everyone for trying hard.

Trust is not rebuilt by warm words. It is rebuilt by clarity, consistency and accountability. At the moment it mattered, the synod opted for none of those at speed.

In February 2025, the synod was asked to choose between two models (3 and 4), each claiming to deliver “greater independence” by transferring safeguarding staff to an external employer and by creating an external Scrutiny Body.

The motion as tabled would have made model 4 “the direction of travel”. But the synod did not choose that route. It endorsed model 3 “as the way forward in the short term” and called for “further work to be undertaken on the legal and practical requirements necessary to implement model 4”. That, in itself, was a decision to delay.

Some members argued that moving straight to model 4 risked creating a system that was “too big to fail”, citing concerns about trustee responsibilities and the Charity Commission’s expectations that trustees must retain the ability to intervene if safeguarding delivery fails.

Others stressed that “culture eats structure for breakfast”, and argued that diocesan safeguarding professionals embedded locally were best placed to challenge unhealthy patterns day by day.

But if delay is defensible, it must be disciplined. Delay needs a timetable, milestones and a defined decision point.

The synod did not impose them.

“Excellent safeguarding professional colleagues” — and a deficit of trust

Here is the line that should make the Church wince. The Bishop of Stepney told the synod that this debate was not about saving the Church’s reputation but about supporting “excellent safeguarding professional colleagues and volunteers”.

Later, the Bishop in Europe paid “tribute to the Church’s DSAs and DSTs”, saying the synod was “deeply grateful for the work that they do”.

These are not marginal voices. They are bishops, part of the Church’s senior leadership, speaking from the platform while the synod decides what independence is supposed to mean.

Now set those tributes alongside what members also said in the same debate.

One member said survivors “feel that the Church can no longer be trusted to manage its own safeguarding”. Another argued that “only complete independence within the Church of England will do”, warning against drifting into “independence-lite”.

GS 2429 later codifies the same reality in official prose: “many survivors do not have trust in the Church of England to properly manage safeguarding matters”.

So which is it? Excellent work, or a system unworthy of trust?

It is both — and that is precisely the Church’s problem.

You can have committed, skilled professionals working within a structure that victims and survivors experience as inconsistent, defensive, slow and conflicted. You can have good individuals inside a system that repeatedly fails to act with speed, transparency and independence.

The Church keeps trying to settle the argument by praising the individuals. It should be designing a system that does not depend on heroics.

The slow-motion reforms that became a way of avoiding reform

The July 2025 interim report promised that the programme team expected to bring “a substantial report” in February 2026 “that sets out firm proposals”. It acknowledged the urgency, while warning that legislation would take “at least two years”.

February 2026 arrived. The General Synod received GS 2429. It did not receive “firm proposals” in a form that could properly be debated and decided. Instead, it was asked to “welcome this update, endorse the direction of travel … and look forward to considering detailed proposals”.

That is the long grass in legislative language.

Worse, the synod had the chance to insist on deadlines — and declined.

An amendment would have required the Programme Board and Archbishops’ Council to bring forward, by July 2027, the “legislation and Code of Practice necessary” to establish the proposed Independent Safeguarding Authority and the mandatory national complaints framework.

Another amendment would have required detailed options and costings for transferring diocesan and cathedral safeguarding staff into independent employment under the new authority by July 2027, so that the synod could decide whether and when full local operational independence would happen.

Both amendments were lost. The motion was carried without them.

So the synod endorsed a “direction” while refusing to specify when the destination must be reached and refusing to require the information that would allow it to decide whether local operational safeguarding will ever be independent.

That is what kicking the can down the road looks like in ecclesiastical governance.

The shifting goalposts since Professor Jay

GS 2378 admits that the proposals brought to the synod “differ from the recommendations of Professor Jay in certain ways”.

That ought to have triggered a disciplined explanation of why those differences were justified and what risks were being accepted.

Instead, the Church has allowed its end-state to mutate.

GS 2429 says the 2025 model proposals “would need extensive legislation” and that “current safeguarding structures would continue to operate … for at least three years”. It then notes that stakeholders “reasonably expect much swifter progress” and proposes “a new end-state model” in response.

So we have moved from implementing a synodical decision to “knitting proposals together” into something new.

What is indefensible is not change, but vagueness. The synod is being asked to bless an evolving concept, with limited detail, on the promise that detail will come later.

This is precisely the governance failure that helped to doom the ISB: leaders “failed to define what they actually meant by independence”.

And yet, in February 2026, the synod again endorsed a general direction rather than a defined model with defined functions, duties, powers and measurable outcomes.

The functions that actually matter

The Church’s credibility in safeguarding is threadbare. If it wants to regain it, it must stop talking mainly about structures and start talking about functions.

GS 2378 identifies the core needs: consistency, equitable treatment and the reduction of “actual or perceived conflict of interest”. GS 2429 is blunter, acknowledging “perceived conflicts of interest”, particularly where clergy are seen to play decisive roles in safeguarding decisions concerning other clergy.

Whatever structure emerges, it must deliver at least four things:

• A single, mandatory complaints pathway with defined stages, defined timescales and a genuinely independent end-stage resolver.
  
  
• Independent scrutiny with teeth: standards, audits, published findings and enforceable follow-up.
  
  
• Clear operational independence for professional judgement — professionals whose independence of judgement is “respected and protected”.
  
  
• A disciplined decision about local operational independence, with a decision point set in the diary.
  
  

In 2025, the synod asked for further work. In 2026, it refused to require that work to be completed by a date certain.

That is not governance. It is avoidance.

A challenge to the Programme Board — and to the synod

The Safeguarding Structures Programme Board was created with a majority of independent members and an independent chair, explicitly because of the “lack of trust in the Church of England to deliver change”.

That is welcome. It is also an admission.

But the Board must now prove that it exists to deliver outcomes, not to launder delay.

Stop asking the synod to endorse “directions of travel”.

Bring concrete proposals that can be amended, debated and voted on. Put the functions on the page: who does what, when, with what powers, with what duty to comply, with what transparency, with what sanctions for failure, with what survivor access and support.

Do not hide behind complexity. Do not ask the synod to rubber-stamp aspiration. Treat it like a legislature, not a focus group.

And the synod itself must stop colluding in the evasion. If members believe the Church has “broken trust” and that rebuilding trust requires radical change, they must stop voting for motions that endorse a mood and defer the detail.

The Church has had enough “watershed moments”. It is time for measurable action: dates, duties, powers and deliverables — and a model that can be tested against the lived experience of victims and survivors, not against the institutional need to buy time.

tl;dr Independence delayed: General Synod backs “direction” over deadlines

Nearly three years after the Archbishops’ Council sacked the Church of England’s so-called Independent Safeguarding Board and promised swift reform, the Church is still talking about “direction of travel” rather than delivering a clear, measurable system of independent safeguarding.

The General Synod never debated Professor Alexis Jay’s recommendations in full. Instead, in February 2025, it was asked to choose between alternative models produced by the Archbishops’ Council. It opted for a short-term version (Model 3) and called for “further work” on the more far-reaching Model 4. That decision may have been defensible — but it was a decision to delay.

Since then, the synod has received an interim report (July 2025) and a further update (February 2026). Yet when the moment came to impose deadlines or require detailed, costed proposals — including legislation and a Code of Practice by July 2027 — amendments to do so were defeated. Instead, the synod simply “endorsed the direction of travel”.

Meanwhile, bishops praised “excellent safeguarding professional colleagues and volunteers”, even as official papers concede that “many survivors do not have trust in the Church of England to properly manage safeguarding matters” and that complaints processes “vary widely” and “undermine trust”.

That contradiction lies at the heart of the crisis. The issue is not whether individuals are hardworking and committed. It is whether the system is structurally independent, consistent and accountable.

Structures alone will not fix this. What is needed are defined functions: a mandatory national complaints pathway, independent scrutiny with real powers, protected professional judgement, and a firm timetable for deciding whether local safeguarding staff will ever be fully independent. The Church has had enough “watershed moments”. It now needs dates, duties and deliverables — not another report about where it might be heading.

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Last February’s General Synod showed, in stark and unprecedented terms, how fragile confidence in the Church of England’s senior leadership has become. At the start of the Group of Sessions, Sam Margrave attempted to prevent the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, from delivering a Presidential Address.

This was not a fit of personal animus. Stephen Cottrell was — and remains — at the centre of multiple safeguarding, leadership, and governance failures. Many people, me among them, have called for his resignation. But “Teflon Stephen” refuses to go.

The Standing Orders provide a number of procedures for General Synod members to stop an item of business. The most common is a procedural motion to “move to next business”. That motion would almost certainly have been challenged by the Synod’s legal adviser if used against a Presidential Address. While not explicitly ruled out by the current Standing Orders, the limits on when it may be used implicitly mean that it could not be deployed in that context.

So Sam Margrave wisely chose another route: the suspension of Standing Order 119 — the Standing Order that makes provision for Presidential Addresses. Suspend that Standing Order, and there is no Presidential Address.

The attempt failed. By a counted vote of the whole Synod, 73 members voted in favour of stopping the address, 239 voted against, with 43 abstentions. The Archbishop therefore spoke. But the numbers matter.

A vote of 73 Synod members willing to take the extraordinary step of seeking to block a Presidential Address, together with a further 43 unwilling to support it, represents a significant and entirely unprecedented expression of no confidence in an Archbishop by the Church’s General Synod — just under a quarter of the Synod indicating opposition or withholding support. That should have been a warning light. Instead, the Church’s leadership brushed it off and carried on regardless.

It is against that background that the Standing Orders Committee’s proposed amendment to Standing Order 33 must be judged. The change would make explicit what was previously implicit: that a motion for “Next Business” may not be moved on a Presidential Address or the questions that follow it.

In substance, it locks in protection for archbishops at the very moment Synod has demonstrated a willingness to challenge them. At a time when trust in the Church of England — and in Stephen Cottrell personally — is at a low ebb, that looks less like tidying up procedure and more like circling the wagons.

The way this is being done compounds the problem. The Business Committee has determined that the amendment will be deemed approved unless five members spot it, object, and force a debate. That is no small ask when Synod members are already required to plough through more than 900 pages of GS and GS Misc papers — nearly 350,000 words — before even reaching the notice papers, where this proposal is buried.

Expecting members to catch and contest a constitutional tightening of their own powers under those conditions is not transparency; it is procedural stealth.

The handling of last year’s motion only sharpens the concern. The Chair of that session, the Bishop of Dover, Rose Hudson-Wilkin, chose not to allow debate on the procedural motion. She was entitled to do so under the Standing Orders — but she then proceeded to offer her own extended intervention, invoking Scripture and prayer, and downplaying questions of consequence by appealing to biblical examples of flawed leaders.

I have nothing personal against Bishop Rose — she was the first person I interviewed when I was 14 and volunteering on a church-event newsletter — but the way she handled Sam Margrave’s motion was wrong.

Many members experienced her intervention not as neutral chairing, but as a spiritually-abusive weighted rebuttal of a procedural challenge, delivered by someone who had just ruled that no debate should take place.

At such a moment, the instinct of Church leadership should be to open itself further to scrutiny, not to narrow the space in which it can be exercised. Other Synod members enjoy no comparable “safety blanket”. They can be interrupted, curtailed, or procedurally challenged. Archbishops, it seems, must not be. If Standing Orders are to be amended, they should move in the opposite direction: towards reducing disparities of power, not entrenching them. Accountability cannot be something the Church merely preaches. It must also be something its leaders are willing to face — in the chamber, in public, and without procedural insulation.

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If you don’t want to read the full 2,450 words, go to the 300-word TL;DR summary

The General Synod meets this week (starting tomorrow) for the first of three scheduled Groups of Sessions this year. It is the penultimate Group of Sessions this quinquennium, with the Synod being prorogued after the July meetings in York.

The November meeting marks the formal start of the next quinquennium: think of the State Opening of Parliament without the pomp, held every five years rather than annually. The King, as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, is expected to deliver a message to mark the formal opening of the new Synod with its newly elected or re-elected members.

The last opening of the Synod took place in November 2021. The current Duke of Edinburgh — then the Earl of Wessex — Prince Edward, stood in for the late Queen Elizabeth II and delivered the message she had written. It was the first time in the Synod’s 51-year history that Queen Elizabeth II missed the opening of a quinquennium. She had been advised to rest by doctors following a brief hospital stay the previous month.

When this quinquennium began, it did so with one of the biggest — if not the biggest — turnovers in membership. Many members, including me, had to get used to Synod processes, procedures and tactics. I say “tactics” because I soon discovered the lengths to which the Archbishops’ Council goes to curtail difficult debate, especially on safeguarding. Combined with a Business Committee that often appears to act as though it were the Archbishops’ Council’s business committee rather than the General Synod’s, the effect has been to blunt Synod members’ attempts to secure safeguarding reform that most people can see is needed.

Parliament says no

I believe that the Church of England is now at the centre of a governance crisis. Parliament’s Ecclesiastical Committee has ruled the draft National Church Governance Measure not expedient, rejecting the case for a new body that would concentrate more power and provide less accountability than the existing arrangements under the Archbishops’ Council.

We don’t know what MPs and peers made of the draft Measure, because the Ecclesiastical Committee cannot publish its report unless the Synod’s Legislative Committee signifies that it should be presented. Although the Legislative Committee has reported that the Measure was rejected, it has not, as yet, published the underlying report or set out the reasons.

Alongside this, the Charity Commission is finally taking a harder line on the Church of England’s safeguarding failings. Over the past year it has:

• written to Synod members who are also charity trustees, reminding them of their safeguarding duties as trustees;

• written to diocesan bishops — who are Synod members and charity trustees — reminding them of similar duties and asking whether structural impediments prevent them from fulfilling those duties;

• warned the Archbishops’ Council that it must “rapidly accelerate” safeguarding reforms and meet an 18-month expectation, faster than the Council’s stated plans, including in its report to this week’s Synod;

• issued official regulatory warnings to two Diocesan Boards of Finance — Chelmsford and Liverpool — because their trustees (the bishop’s council) failed in their safeguarding governance and trustee duties in relation to allegations concerning the former Bishop of Liverpool, John Perumbalath.

For many years, the Archbishops’ Council has, in my view, relied on obfuscation and — more seriously — dishonest statements. Victims and survivors of church-related abuse have said this for decades. In recent years more campaigners and advocates have added their voices, and they have repeatedly been dismissed.

Now Parliament and the Charity Commission — the statutory regulator — have recognised what is happening and are signalling that poor practice must end.

How do the Archbishops’ Council respond? It defaults to type and continues to obfuscate.

They may get away with this approach with victims, survivors, campaigners and advocates. It won’t work against Parliament and the regulator.

Am I being too hard on the Archbishops’ Council?

A regular feature of General Synod is Question Time. Every Synod member may table up to two questions to several national Church bodies, including the Archbishops’ Council. Written answers are circulated shortly before the Group of Sessions begins, and each substantive question may attract up to two supplementary questions on the floor.

Let us look at two questions, and the written answers, for this Group of Sessions.

Janette Allotey, a lay member from the Diocese of Chester, asked the Presidents of the Archbishops’ Council — the Archbishops of Canterbury and York —this question:

“‘The Commission’s guidance is clear that trustees must take reasonable steps to protect from harm all people who come into contact with their charity.’ In the Regulatory Action Plan of November 2025 issued to the Archbishops’ Council following publication of the Makin Report, the Charity Commission expressed concern that the Church did not treat allegations of abuse from an adult not assessed to be vulnerable as a safeguarding issue. What steps, if any, are being taken to address this criticism?”

“Identifying the issues”

The written response came not from either archbishop but from a lay member of the Archbishops’ Council, Canon Alison Coulter. She wrote: “This is a matter that was also raised in the Charity Commission for England and Wales’s findings in relation to the Dioceses of Chelmsford and Liverpool. Staff of the Council are working to identify the questions, issues and requirements this raises and have written to the Charity Commission seeking a discussion on what changes may be needed. I will keep the Synod informed of progress and any changes required. However, Synod should note carefully the expectations that the Charity Commission has of trustees, of which they have helpfully reminded us.”

So: a Regulatory Action Plan in November, two Official Warnings to Chelmsford and Liverpool, and the Archbishops’ Council’s position is that it has written to the Charity Commission to seek “a discussion” while staff work to “identify the questions, issues and requirements” raised.

This response is extraordinary. The Charity Commission’s “questions, issues, and requirements” are not recent inventions. They reflect the legal duties that apply to every charity trustee.

Those duties are set out in the Charities Act 2011, which largely consolidates earlier charity legislation. The core obligations of trustees did not begin in 2011; they have been part of charity law for many years.

The Archbishops’ Council should already know what the Charity Commission expects of trustees, because those expectations arise from the law.

Perhaps, one might say, the Council is composed of well- meaning people acting in good faith who lack the specialist knowledge to navigate trusteeship. Maybe that is why it has written to the Charity Commission to seek a meeting.

A well-lawyered institution

That explanation does not withstand scrutiny. In July 2022, during my time as a Synod member, I asked how many lawyers the National Church Institutions (NCIs) employed, what they cost, and how many external lawyers they instructed for specific work.

The Secretary General, William Nye, replied that the number of legally qualified staff, and their immediate support staff, rose from 10 in 2017 at a salary cost of £935,078 to 13 in 2021 at a salary cost of £1,483,801.

On external lawyers, Mr Nye said that “the information requested is not readily available and could not be obtained without disproportionate cost.”

A brief aside on that claim. The Archbishops’ Council is a large charity. In 2021, the last year covered by Mr Nye’s figures, the council’s income was £128.09 million and its expenditure was £128.74 million. In 2024, published figures show income of £235.64 million and expenditure of £229.41 million.

An organisation of that scale does not run its finances on handwritten ledgers. It uses an accounting system with structured ledgers and cost centres that should allow external legal spend to be identified without disproportionate cost. On an ordinary reading, that is a basic requirement of financial control.

When Mr Nye said that the information “is not readily available” and could not be obtained without disproportionate cost, one of two things was true. Either the Archbishops’ Council was capable of producing the figure and chose not to disclose it (in which case Mr Nye lied), or it could not readily identify its external legal spend, in which case the trustees were not exercising proper oversight.

That aside illustrates the gap between the Archbishops’ Council’s claims to transparency and what it is prepared to disclose when pressed.

The larger point is that the Council cannot plausibly plead ignorance of trustees’ legal duties or of what the Charity Commission expects. It employs a substantial in-house legal function, and it spends well over £1 million a year on the salaries of legally qualified staff and their support.

Why, then, does the Archbishops’ Council present itself as needing to “identify” the Charity Commission’s “questions, issues and requirements”? Why does it need a meeting to establish what charity trustees are obliged to do?

The Regulatory Action Plan was issued in November last year. The Official Warnings to Chelmsford and Liverpool Diocesan Boards of Finance were issued last month.

These are unusual — and serious — interventions by the regulator, and I doubt they will be the last. Any organisation confronted with this level of scrutiny would normally treat it as a priority: trustees and senior officers would meet, identify the failures, and implement corrective action.

The Charity Commission’s intervention is not a “Lessons Learned Review” commissioned internally and filed away. It is a formal regulatory signal that practice must change. Incidentally, the Church of England no longer uses the “Lessons Learned Reviews” terminology. It now calls them “Safeguarding Practice Reviews” — an implicit acknowledgement, perhaps, that lessons have too often not been learned.

Janette Allotey’s question asked, directly, what steps were being taken to address the Commission’s November criticism. The written answer, as at February, was that staff were still “identifying” issues and seeking a discussion with the regulator. To me, that reads as an admission that the Archbishops’ Council do not have a firm grip on what charity trustees are required to do.

A letter seeking a meeting three months later raises obvious questions. Where is the urgency? Where is the action? Where is the change on the ground?

Another question for this week’s Group of Sessions is equally revealing.

Dr Brendan Biggs, a lay member from the Diocese of Bristol, also directed his question to the Presidents of the Archbishops’ Council. As with Janette Allottey’s question, the written reply came from Canon Alison Coulter.

Dr Biggs referred to the letter that the Charity Commission’s chief executive, David Holdsworth, sent to diocesan bishops in January 2025. It asked whether, after decisions taken by the General Synod in February 2025, there remained any “structural, procedural or constitutional arrangements under ecclesiastical law” that conflicted with, or prevented, bishops and their co-trustees from fulfilling their safeguarding duties as charity trustees (“legal impediments”). Dr Biggs asked whether bishops’ responses had collated centrally, and whether there was a plan to address any legal impediments identified.

Canon Coulter’s response illustrates, again, what I regard as a failure of the Archbishops’ Council — and of Diocesan Boards of Finance — to discharge basic trustee responsibilities.

She wrote: “Some dioceses have shared their responses with the staff of the Archbishops’ Council, but we have not produced a central digest.”

After referring to the Charity Commission’s November 2025 intervention, she added: “We continue to work with the Charity Commission on the Regulatory Action Plan and the Archbishops’ Council is determined to improve practice to fulfil our requirements. We very much hope that dioceses will work in partnership with us.”

That answer sits uneasily with her answer to Janette Allotey. In response to Ms Allottey, Canon Coulter said the Council had written to the Charity Commission to seek a discussion to understand what changes might be needed. Here she says the Council continues “to work with the Charity Commission on the Regulatory Action Plan”.

Which is it?

More seriously, the answer discloses a lack of proactive action. The Charity Commission’s January and February 2025 letters were public. Rather than treat them as a prompt for urgent, coordinated work, the Archbishops’ Council appears to have waited for the regulator to act and is now presenting itself as seeking clarity on what trustees are required to do.

What the Charity Commission expects is neither novel nor obscure. It expects trustees to fulfil their legal duties as trustees.

Instead of waiting, the Archbishops’ Council should have convened the bishops and asked them what “structural, procedural or constitutional arrangements under ecclesiastical law” prevented them from fulfilling safeguarding duties as charity trustees.

There is an obvious mechanism for doing that. The House of Bishops meets regularly, and this issue could, and should, have been on its agenda throughout the past year.

The General Synod has limited powers to initiate legislation. In practice, that is the preserve of the Archbishops’ Council. If “structural, procedural or constitutional arrangements under ecclesiastical law” must change to enable trustees of Church of England charities — including Diocesan Boards of Finance — to fulfil safeguarding duties, the Archbishops’ Council is the body that must bring forward the necessary legislation.

Independent charities — selectively

The Archbishops’ Council has often said that Diocesan Boards of Finance are independent charities and that it cannot require them to take particular action. The line that dioceses and DBFs are separate, independent charities has become a limiting principle: the Council does not, on that account, instruct, compel, or enforce outcomes, but relies on persuasion, encouragement, or legislative change.

Yet the Council invokes this principle selectively. In the second Past Cases Review (PCR2), dioceses were instructed on which files to review, the qualifications required of the reviewers, the actions expected of diocesan safeguarding teams, the timescale, the content of diocesan summary reports, and the manner of publication.

When asked to produce a report collating the recommendations made by reviewers across dioceses, the answer was that the Archbishops’ Council could not do this because the data belonged to those independent charities (the bishops’ councils).

This “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach is not legally defensible. Call it what you will — institutional blindness, deliberate ignorance, turning a blind eye, plausible deniability, or failure of oversight — the practical effect is the same: avoidance of responsibility and avoidance of scrutiny.

By failing to ask the questions that trustees ought to know must be asked, and by failing to require the information needed to discharge their duties, the Archbishops’ Council displays the same pattern that public inquiries have criticised elsewhere. In the criminal courts, directors who operate in this way may face exposure to corporate manslaughter investigations, health and safety prosecutions, and professional sanctions.

It is no longer good enough for the Archbishops’ Council to sit back and wait, suggesting that delay reflects a need for “clarity” from the Charity Commission. It must act — not because I demand it, and not only because the Charity Commission demands it, but because charity law requires trustees to act.

TL;DR — Synod questions expose a governance blind spot

Two questions at this week’s General Synod expose a deeper problem at the heart of the Church of England’s governance: how members of the Archbishops’ Council understand — or evade — their responsibilities as charity trustees.

In November, the Charity Commission issued a Regulatory Action Plan to the Archbishops’ Council following the Makin Report. It criticised the Church for failing to treat allegations of abuse from adults not assessed as vulnerable as safeguarding matters. Since then, the Commission has issued Official Warnings to two Diocesan Boards of Finance and written directly to bishops and Synod members reminding them of their legal duties as trustees.

Against that backdrop, Janette Allotey asked a simple question: what steps are being taken to address the Commission’s criticism?

The written answer was striking. The Archbishops’ Council said staff were still “identifying the questions, issues and requirements” raised by the regulator and had written to the Charity Commission to seek a discussion about what changes might be needed.

But the Charity Commission’s expectations are not new or unclear. They are rooted in long-established charity law. Trustees are required to act in the best interests of their charities and to protect people from harm. Those duties do not begin with correspondence from the regulator.

A second question reinforced the same picture. Asked whether bishops’ responses to the Commission’s letter about possible “legal impediments” had been collated centrally, the answer was no.

Together, these replies reveal a pattern of delay and deflection. Despite employing a substantial in-house legal team and spending well over £1 million a year on legally qualified staff, the Archbishops’ Council presents itself as needing “clarity” on what trustees are required to do.

That stance might once have gone unchallenged. With Parliament and the Charity Commission now watching closely, it no longer will.

The post When the regulator comes knocking, the Archbishops’ Council puts on the blinkers appeared first on Church Abuse.

I have just published a new detailed briefing, critically examining the Archbishops’ Council’s latest proposals for independent safeguarding in the Church of England.

The briefing document, written for Synod members, MPs, trustees, and all those concerned with safeguarding reform, sets out why the latest proposals, to be debated by the General Synod later this month, fall far short of what is needed.

The briefing explains that, despite years of promises and external scrutiny, the Church’s new safeguarding plans do not deliver genuine independence. Instead, they propose a slow, staged approach that keeps real control within existing Church structures for years to come. The analysis highlights how this approach fails to meet the expectations of victims and survivors, the requirements set out by the Charity Commission, and the calls for urgent action from General Synod and Parliament.

Key sections of the briefing cover the collapse of the Independent Safeguarding Board, the findings of the Jay Review, and the recent intervention by the Charity Commission. It argues that the Church’s current direction represents a retreat from previous commitments and risks further eroding trust among survivors and the wider public.

The document also challenges the claim that all IICSA recommendations have been delivered, pointing out that true independence in safeguarding remains undelivered.

The briefing concludes with a call for Synod and Parliament to reject the current proposals and instead demand a credible, accelerated route to statutory independent safeguarding, with robust interim measures in place.

It also offers a suggested amendment for Synod members to use, ensuring that reform is not delayed any further.

For anyone interested in the future of safeguarding in the Church of England, this briefing provides a clear, evidence-based summary of why urgent, decisive action is needed now.

You can download it here [PDF].

The post Delay and control: the problems with the Archbishops’ Council’s safeguarding plans appeared first on Church Abuse.

See also: When “No Case To Answer” means no accountability: Why the Tudor decision exposes a safeguarding system beyond repair

See also: Stephen Cottrell’s own words — and why they fail basic safeguarding and legal tests

See also: Authority invoked, lessons avoided: what the Archbishop of York’s statement still fails to confront

And if you want a good reminder of the case, listen to BBC Radio’s original File on Four investigation

The Church of England is currently engaged in two distinct processes arising from the David Tudor case. One is a disciplinary complaint brought under the Clergy Discipline Measure against the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, which was halted at a preliminary stage by the President of Tribunals under section 17 of the Measure. The other is a national, independent Safeguarding Practice Review, still ongoing, examining the Church’s handling of the case over many years and intended to identify learning to improve safeguarding practice and outcomes for victims and survivors.

The Safeguarding Practice Review (SPR) was commissioned by the National Safeguarding Team and the dioceses of Chelmsford and Southwark to examine the Church’s handling of the David Tudor case over many years. Its terms of reference make clear that Stephen Cottrell’s actions will be part of the review. The review began work in March 2025 and was originally expected to conclude within six months. A final call for evidence was issued in September 2025, after that initial timetable had already elapsed, and in November the Church announced a further delay, citing new police information.

The review is now expected to report in early 2026. Its stated purpose is not to re-litigate disciplinary findings, but to identify learning, assess safeguarding practice and decision-making, and improve outcomes for victims and survivors. At the time the Archbishop issued his statement, this review was ongoing and unfinished.

These two processes serve different purposes and operate to different standards. A Section 17 decision determines only whether a complaint proceeds to a tribunal; it does not make findings of fact after a hearing, and it does not exhaust wider questions of safeguarding leadership, institutional learning, or systemic failure. The difficulty with the Archbishop’s public statement following the Section 17 decision is not its timing, but the way it sought to present that procedural outcome as a point of closure while the broader safeguarding review remains unfinished.

By framing the Section 17 decision as definitive, and by invoking senior judicial authority — emphasising that the President of Tribunals is also a judge of the Court of Appeal — to reinforce that framing, the Archbishop’s statement did more than explain a procedural outcome. It shaped how that outcome would be understood — and, crucially, how it would be reported — at a point when a wider safeguarding process remains unfinished.

That risk was not theoretical. It materialised almost immediately in media coverage of the Archbishop’s statement. Within hours, mainstream outlets reported the outcome as a substantive exoneration. The Guardian ran the headline “Archbishop of York cleared of misconduct over handling of sexual abuse case”. Premier Christian News used“Archbishop of York cleared over handling of abuse case”. The Church Times headlined: “President of Tribunals finds no case to answer for Archbishop of York in David Tudor case”.

That framing did not arise from the President’s decision itself, which stopped the complaint at a preliminary stage and expressly acknowledged serious mistakes and regrettable decisions. It flowed from the Archbishop’s own characterisation of the outcome. The danger identified above — that a Section 17 threshold decision would be treated as final vindication, and would dominate the public narrative while a Safeguarding Practice Review remains ongoing — therefore moved rapidly from risk to reality.

Respect for the independent reviewer

It is important to be clear about what this critique is not. It is not a criticism of the independent Safeguarding Practice Review or of the reviewer herself. Sue Williams is a former senior police commander, appointed precisely because of her professional independence, experience, and credibility. The Terms of Reference make clear that the review is designed to examine evidence, identify good and poor practice, and apply professional judgment on the balance of probabilities in order to improve safeguarding outcomes.

There is no reason to doubt the reviewer’s integrity or competence. The concern lies elsewhere: in the institutional context in which she is being asked to work, and the signals being sent publicly by the Church’s most senior leaders while her work is ongoing.

Two foreseeable risks created by the statement

The Archbishop’s statement creates two distinct and foreseeable risks, both of which are grounded in recent Church experience rather than speculation.

First, the risk of dampening critique.

When a senior leader publicly frames a Section 17 decision as definitive exoneration, and explicitly associates that outcome with the authority of a senior judge, it inevitably raises the stakes for anyone who later offers criticism. An independent reviewer, however robust, cannot be unaware that any adverse findings may be portrayed as contradicting what has already been presented to the public as a quasi-judicial clearance. That does not mean the reviewer will soften conclusions — but it does mean the institutional climate has been made more difficult than it needs to be.

Second, the risk of delegitimising the review’s findings if they diverge.

This risk is not hypothetical. Following the publication of the Makin Review in the John Smyth case, there were public attempts by figures linked to the Archbishops’ Council and the National Safeguarding Team to question, contextualise, or resist aspects of the findings — particularly where they touched on reporting failures and senior responsibility. That experience shows how quickly review findings can be contested when they are uncomfortable.

By issuing a statement that strongly asserts “no possibility of misconduct”, the Archbishop has inadvertently provided ammunition for supporters to challenge the SPR’s conclusions if they are critical. If the review identifies failures in leadership, decision-making, or safeguarding culture, the response may not be “what can we learn?”, but “how can this be right if a senior judge said otherwise?”.

That dynamic undermines the very purpose of a Safeguarding Practice Review.

Narrative closure versus safeguarding humility

There is also a deeper problem of leadership judgment.

The Archbishop’s statement could have taken a different tone. It could have said, in effect: this is an interim procedural decision; serious concerns remain; an independent safeguarding review is ongoing; I will listen carefully to its findings. Instead, the statement prioritised reassurance — to himself and to the institution — over restraint.

That choice matters because safeguarding leadership demands humility in uncertainty. When processes are ongoing, particularly those designed to learn from harm, leaders are expected to resist the urge for premature validation. In this case, the Archbishop chose language that effectively said “I am in the clear”, rather than “this is one step, and more scrutiny is to come”.

The victims and survivors are once again placed second. Their experiences are acknowledged in words, but subordinated in practice to the need to assert reputational closure.

A continuing failure to grasp the structural problem

Most troubling of all is what the statement again fails to address: the structural safeguarding failure at the heart of the Tudor case.

The Archbishop repeats the claim that there was “no power” to remove David Tudor earlier. Yet he offers no recognition that this remains a live safeguarding defect, nor any indication that he intends to do anything about it. A bishop still cannot remove a priest in circumstances of known safeguarding risk. That is not merely a historical curiosity; it is a present danger. A Safeguarding Practice Review is precisely the mechanism through which such systemic failures should be confronted.

By presenting the disciplinary outcome as effectively final, the Archbishop’s statement diminishes the space for that necessary structural reckoning.

Another red flag — and a necessary conclusion

None of this requires an allegation of bad faith. But safeguarding is not assessed by intention alone. It is assessed by judgment, awareness, and the ability to place institutional learning and survivor wellbeing ahead of personal validation.

In that respect, this statement is another red flag. It shows a continuing tendency to conflate procedural outcomes with moral clearance, to close narratives prematurely, and to underestimate how power and messaging affect safeguarding processes still in train.

For a leader already criticised for failures of curiosity, reflection, and structural action, this is not a minor misstep. It is part of a pattern.

Safeguarding credibility depends not only on what leaders say, but on what they choose not to say while others are still doing the work of truth-finding. On that measure, the Archbishop’s statement falls short — and reinforces the case that his position is no longer tenable.

Leadership that repeatedly places reassurance before accountability cannot deliver a safer Church. At this point, the only responsible course left is resignation.

The post Archbishop Stephen Cottrell says he has been cleared — but the Tudor case is still under review appeared first on Church Abuse.

See also: When “No Case To Answer” means no accountability: Why the Tudor decision exposes a safeguarding system beyond repair

See also: Stephen Cottrell’s own words — and why they fail basic safeguarding and legal tests

See also: Archbishop Stephen Cottrell says he has been cleared — but the Tudor case is still under review

And if you want a good reminder of the case, listen to BBC Radio’s original File on Four investigation

The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, has issued a statement following the publication of the Section 17 decision in the David Tudor case. The tone is measured and pastoral, and the language carefully chosen. But read critically, the statement reveals not reflection, but entrenchment — and a continuing failure to address the structural safeguarding problem at the heart of the case.

A striking feature of the statement is its emphasis on the fact that the President of Tribunals is a “Court of Appeal judge”. That fact is true, but its use here is deeply misleading.

The President was not sitting as the Court of Appeal. He was acting as a single decision-maker under the Clergy Discipline Measure — an internal ecclesiastical process that lacks the core features that give Court of Appeal decisions their authority. There was no public hearing, no adversarial testing of evidence, no full disclosure of documents to the complainant, and no robust appeal mechanism. The President’s decision was final in practice.

By contrast, the Court of Appeal operates with openness, procedural transparency, and institutional accountability. Parties have access to the evidence relied upon. Decisions are reasoned in public. Appeals are possible. The Supreme Court has repeatedly stressed that transparency is not optional in serious adjudication — most notably in Cape Intermediate Holdings Ltd v Dring, which underlined the constitutional importance of public access to documents underpinning judicial decisions.

Invoking the judge’s title while ignoring the procedural limits of the process is a clear warning sign. It seeks to appropriate the authority of a senior appellate court without acknowledging that the safeguards which give that authority its legitimacy — openness, evidential transparency, adversarial testing, and effective appeal — are absent from the processes established under the Clergy Discipline Measure. When Sir Stephen Males sits as a judge of the Court of Appeal, he operates under fundamentally different rules, procedures, standards of openness, and mechanisms of accountability than when he sits as President of Tribunals in clergy discipline proceedings.

A second and more serious concern appears in the Archbishop’s closing paragraph. He states that safeguarding standards have “changed and improved significantly since Mr Tudor was allowed back to ministry in the 1980s”.

That framing is profoundly problematic. The actions under scrutiny were not taken in the 1980s, nor in a period of undeveloped safeguarding awareness. They were taken decades later, when trauma-informed practice, victim-centred safeguarding, rigorous record-keeping, and sensitivity to power imbalance were already well-established expectations across public bodies, charities, and the Church itself. By relocating the issue to an earlier safeguarding era, the statement implicitly lowers the standard against which the Archbishop’s own decisions are to be judged. That is not an incidental choice of words; it reframes contemporary decision-making as if it belonged to a different moral and professional landscape, and in doing so deflects responsibility for actions taken in a period when better was both known and expected.

Most telling of all is what the statement does not say. The Archbishop once again relies on the claim that there was “no power” to remove David Tudor earlier. Yet he offers no indication whatsoever that he recognises this as a continuing structural failure, let alone that he intends to do anything about it. A bishop still cannot remove a priest in circumstances like Tudor’s. That prohibition remains. The statement contains no acknowledgement that this is unacceptable for safeguarding, no commitment to legislative reform, and no recognition of his own responsibility, as a senior Church leader, to address it.

Other red flags remain. The statement reiterates that decisions were taken “in accordance with advice”, without grappling with whether following advice absolves responsibility. It re-centres the narrative on the eventual suspension in 2019, while avoiding the harder questions about earlier choices to confer authority and honour. And it presents regret as sufficient, without analysing why those regrets did not translate into different decisions at the time.

Safeguarding accountability is not about tone, titles, or reassurance. It is about systems, evidence, and the willingness to confront uncomfortable truths. On that test, the Archbishop’s statement suggests that the most important lesson of the Tudor case has still not been learned.

The post Authority invoked, lessons avoided: what the Archbishop of York’s statement still fails to confront appeared first on Church Abuse.

If you don’t want to read the full 1,400 words, go to the 300-word TL;DR summary

See also: When “No Case To Answer” means no accountability: Why the Tudor decision exposes a safeguarding system beyond repair

See also: Authority invoked, lessons avoided: what the Archbishop of York’s statement still fails to confront

See also: Archbishop Stephen Cottrell says he has been cleared — but the Tudor case is still under review

And if you want a good reminder of the case, listen to BBC Radio’s original File on Four investigation

Yesterday’s blog examined why the “no case to answer” decision in the David Tudor case is unsustainable. This supplement takes a different but equally important approach. It examines the Archbishop of York’s own words, as recorded in his response to the complaint, and measures them against four benchmarks:

1. good safeguarding practice and process;
2. his public statements to the media;
3. the duties imposed on charity trustees by law; and
4. the Church of England’s own safeguarding policies.

The difficulty is not tone, sincerity, or intention. It is process, evidence, and accountability.

Memory is not safeguarding: why records matter

In his response to the complaint, the Archbishop accepts overall responsibility for decisions affecting David Tudor but says that he has “no actual memory” of the processes by which Tudor was reappointed as Area Dean. He then adds that he is “sure” he would remember if safeguarding professionals had questioned the propriety of those reappointments — and that they did not.

This is not a minor point. It goes to the heart of safeguarding governance.

Safeguarding systems do not rely on personal recall. They rely on records. Where a known abuser is subject to ongoing restrictions; where risk is said to be “managed well”; and where decisions are taken to extend responsibility, authority, or visibility, safeguarding standards require a clear, contemporaneous documentary trail. That trail should include:

• written advice from safeguarding professionals;
  
• minutes or notes of meetings where risk and role suitability were discussed;
  
• documented consideration of alternatives and mitigations;
  
• explicit recording of victim and survivor impact; and
  
• a reasoned, recorded justification for the final decision taken.

These records are not optional, and they are not kept for their own sake. They exist precisely so that, when decisions later come under scrutiny, the organisation can demonstrate how safeguarding judgments were made, what information was considered, and why particular risks were judged acceptable or unacceptable.

The Archbishop repeatedly emphasises that Tudor’s risks were being “managed well”, with regular oversight and professional involvement. If that is correct, then robust records must exist. If they exist, they should have been used, cited, and relied upon in responding to the complaint and in reviewing safeguarding actions. A review that looks past records and instead relies on a failure of memory is not a meaningful review at all.

If such records existed but were not used, that raises serious governance questions. It suggests that record-keeping is treated as a compliance exercise rather than as a tool for accountability and learning. Records that are not used to inform review and scrutiny serve no safeguarding purpose.

If, on the other hand, those records did not exist, then the claim that risk was “managed well” is unsustainable. Risk management that cannot be evidenced is not risk management; it is assertion.

Either way, reliance on “I’m sure I would remember” falls far short of what safeguarding policy expects. It reduces safeguarding to personal confidence rather than demonstrable process — exactly the failure mode that safeguarding frameworks are designed to prevent.

The “I can’t remember” defence in law and public accountability

This problem is not unique to the Church of England. Courts and statutory inquiries have grappled repeatedly with the question of what weight can be given to an office-holder’s inability to remember key decisions.

The consistent legal and public-law position is clear: an inability to remember does not absolve responsibility, particularly where the individual held a senior role and where proper records should have existed.

In the UK Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, cases involving historic wrongdoing, institutional failure, or public authority decision-making regularly emphasise that responsibility does not depend on personal recollection. Courts look instead to contemporaneous documentation, established processes, and what ought reasonably to have been recorded. Where records are missing, that absence itself can support adverse inferences about governance and control.

The same principle is repeatedly applied in Independent Statutory Public Inquiries. From child abuse inquiries to major public disasters, inquiry chairs have consistently rejected “I can’t remember” as an adequate answer where the witness was responsible for systems, policies, or decisions. The expectation is not perfect recall; it is that proper records exist and can be examined. Where they do not, that absence is treated as a failure of governance.

Inquiries have also been explicit that senior leaders cannot rely on memory loss while simultaneously asserting that systems were robust and risks well managed. Those two positions are logically incompatible. Either the system was robust — in which case it should have produced records capable of scrutiny — or it was not.

Against that backdrop, the Archbishop’s reliance on lack of memory, coupled with personal assurance (“I am sure I would remember”), is not a neutral evidential position. It is a red flag. It indicates a safeguarding system that cannot demonstrate its own workings when challenged.

Administrative convenience over safeguarding priority

The Archbishop explains that he was reluctant to reappoint Tudor as Area Dean but did so because he was told that there was nobody suitable to replace him. That explanation is treated as mitigating context, but it is troubling when measured against safeguarding norms.

Area Dean is not a marginal role. It carries authority, influence, and symbolic weight. Where a known abuser is involved, safeguarding best practice requires positive justification for extending responsibility — not merely an explanation of difficulty.

Good safeguarding governance would expect to see a documented options appraisal: who else was considered, what interim arrangements were explored, whether the role could be left vacant, whether duties could be redistributed, and why each alternative was rejected. It would also expect explicit consideration of the safeguarding and trauma impact of maintaining a known abuser in a senior position.

Without such evidence, the explanation reads as administrative convenience taking precedence over safeguarding priority. That is precisely the cultural failure safeguarding regimes are designed to counteract.

“We knew he shouldn’t have been allowed back”

One of the most significant statements attributed to the Archbishop is this: “We knew he shouldn’t have been allowed back into ministry, but since he had been, and we couldn’t remove him, we were working hard… to manage and minimise the risk.”

This is an extraordinary admission. It acknowledges that Tudor’s presence in ministry was itself recognised as wrong, yet treats that recognition as a fixed constraint rather than a trigger for escalation.

Safeguarding leadership is not about accommodating acknowledged failure. It is about challenging systems that perpetuate risk. Managing risk while accepting that someone should not be in ministry is not safeguarding; it is containment.

This sits uneasily with the Archbishop’s public statements at the time, in which he insisted that “everything was done” to manage risk, that Tudor was not ignored or protected, and that action was taken as soon as legally possible. Those assurances demand evidential backing. Without records showing how victim impact was assessed and prioritised, they cannot be substantiated.

Charity trustee duties and structural neglect

As a diocesan bishop and later Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell was a charity trustee, subject to legal duties to act where he knew of serious risk to beneficiaries and of systemic governance weaknesses.

His own words show that he knew bishops lacked effective powers to remove clergy in high-risk safeguarding situations. That was not theoretical; it constrained his actions directly. Under charity law, identifying such a defect is not the end of the matter. Trustees are required to take reasonable steps to remedy known structural risks, including escalation and reform.

Instead, the inability to remove became an explanation rather than a problem to be solved. The status quo was accepted, even as its consequences were acknowledged. That is what neglect looks like in governance terms: not bad faith, but failure to act on known, ongoing risk.

The contrast with Hindley

The later case of Andrew Hindley at Blackburn Cathedral demonstrates that such paralysis was not inevitable. When safeguarding risk was treated as intolerable, the Church was prepared to contemplate radical structural options to bring the situation to an end. The lesson is not that a neat statutory power existed, but that senior leaders knew the system was not powerless when the will to act was present.

Policy versus practice

The Church of England’s safeguarding policies emphasise victim-centred practice, defensible decision-making, transparency, and accountability. Measured against those standards, the Archbishop’s own account reveals repeated gaps: reliance on memory rather than records; administrative convenience outweighing safeguarding priority; public assurances unsupported by evidence; and acceptance of structural incapacity without meaningful challenge.

None of this requires an allegation of bad faith. But safeguarding is not judged by intention. It is judged by process, evidence, and outcomes. Using the Archbishop’s own words, the conclusion is unavoidable: the actions described are not defensible when measured against safeguarding best practice, public assurances, charity trustee duties, and the Church of England’s own standards. That is why accountability cannot end with “no case to answer”.

• This post was amended on 31 January 2026 to correct the name of Andrew Hindley

TL;DR — Why the Archbishop’s own words matter

The latest decision in the David Tudor case concluded there was “no case to answer” in relation to the Archbishop of York’s handling of safeguarding concerns. This follow-up examines the Archbishop’s own recorded words — and finds that they do not withstand scrutiny when measured against safeguarding standards, charity-law duties, and the Church of England’s own policies.

In his response to the complaint, the Archbishop accepts overall responsibility but says he has “no actual memory” of key decisions, relying instead on personal assurance that he would remember if safeguarding professionals had raised concerns. That is not a safeguarding answer. Safeguarding depends on records, not recall. Where risk is said to have been “managed well”, there should be clear documentary evidence showing how decisions were made, what advice was given, what alternatives were considered, and how victim impact was weighed. If such records exist but were not used, both the records and the review process are deficient. If they do not exist, claims of good risk management cannot be sustained.

The Archbishop also explains that a known abuser was reappointed to a senior role because there was “nobody suitable” to replace him. Safeguarding practice requires positive justification for extending authority and status — not administrative convenience. There is no evidence of a documented options appraisal or of victim-centred decision-making.

Most strikingly, the Archbishop acknowledges that the individual “shouldn’t have been allowed back into ministry”, yet frames safeguarding as managing risk within that reality rather than challenging the system that allowed it. That sits uneasily with public statements insisting that “everything was done”.

As a charity trustee, the Archbishop had a legal duty to act on known, systemic safeguarding risks — including defects in the Church’s powers to remove clergy. Accepting those defects without meaningful challenge is neglect, not inevitability.

Using the Archbishop’s own words, the conclusion is unavoidable: the actions described are not defensible by safeguarding, governance, or legal standards. Accountability cannot end with “no case to answer”.

The post Stephen Cottrell’s own words — and why they fail basic safeguarding and legal tests appeared first on Church Abuse.

If you don’t want to read the full 1,500 words, go to the 479-word TL;DR summary

See also: Stephen Cottrell’s own words — and why they fail basic safeguarding and legal tests

See also: Authority invoked, lessons avoided: what the Archbishop of York’s statement still fails to confront

See also: Archbishop Stephen Cottrell says he has been cleared — but the Tudor case is still under review

And if you want a good reminder of the case, listen to BBC Radio’s original File on Four investigation

The decision by the President of Clergy Discipline Tribunals to dismiss the complaint concerning the Archbishop of York’s handling of the David Tudor case is not simply unpersuasive. Read carefully, it is unsustainable on the evidence, inconsistent with ordinary judicial reasoning, and fundamentally misaligned with contemporary safeguarding and charity-law standards.

This is not a matter of hindsight, nor of personal animus. It is about governance, accountability, and whether the Church of England’s disciplinary system is capable of responding credibly when safeguarding failures involve senior leaders.

On the evidence, it is not.

A threshold test quietly rewritten

Under the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003, the President of Tribunals must decide whether there is a case to answer. That is a gateway test. Its purpose is to filter out complaints that are frivolous, vexatious, or incapable of amounting to misconduct even if proved — not to determine the merits of contested safeguarding judgments.

Yet in this case the President reformulated the test. He stated that a matter should proceed only if there were a “real prospect”, taking the case at its highest, that a tribunal would find misconduct.

That formulation does not appear in the Measure or in the Clergy Discipline Rules (made by Statutory Instrument). No authority is cited for importing it. And its practical effect is decisive: it allows the President to weigh evidence, assess credibility, and determine reasonableness at the very stage designed to avoid that exercise.

Having raised the bar, the decision repeatedly acknowledges that:

• serious mistakes were made,
• decisions were “regrettable”,
• and the Archbishop “could and should have been more curious”.

Yet it concludes that no tribunal could reasonably find misconduct.

That is not neutral gatekeeping. It is a merits decision, taken by a single office-holder, without the testing, transparency, or adversarial scrutiny that a tribunal exists to provide.

Good faith treated as a shield against accountability

A central strand of the reasoning is that the Archbishop acted “in good faith”, relied on safeguarding advice, and was dealing with an “inherited situation”.

All of that may be true. None of it answers the charge.

In ordinary judicial, regulatory, and safeguarding contexts, good faith does not negate neglect. Senior office-holders are routinely found culpable where they:

• know of a serious risk,
• have authority or influence to mitigate it,
• but fail to act reasonably in light of that knowledge.

Misconduct under the Clergy Discipline Measure expressly includes “neglect or inefficiency in the performance of office”, a statutory definition the President expressly acknowledges, but then undermines in practice by treating good faith as effectively dispositive rather than as one factor to be weighed.

That is not how safeguarding accountability works in the NHS, education, charities, or regulated professions. It should not be how it works here.

Managed risk is not the same as suitability for authority or honour

The most serious flaw in the decision lies in its treatment of status and power.

The President accepts that the safeguarding restrictions imposed on David Tudor were so significant that they demonstrated he was not suitable to minister as an ordinary parish priest. Yet he simultaneously concludes that appointing and reappointing him as Area Dean, and conferring an honorary canonry, could not amount to misconduct because those steps were taken in accordance with policy and safeguarding advice.

That reasoning is incompatible with safeguarding reality.

Safeguarding agreements manage known risk. They do not confer endorsement. They do not render a person suitable for senior roles. And they do not neutralise the safeguarding significance of authority, visibility, and institutional honour.

Senior diocesan offices and honorary canonries are not administratively neutral. They signal trust. They enhance credibility. They expand access and influence. In safeguarding terms, they are risk amplifiers, not incidental decorations.

The assertion that any risk arose solely from Tudor’s parish role — and not from these additional offices — is not a finding grounded in evidence. It is an assumption, and an implausible one.

Speculation substituted for professional curiosity

The decision concedes that a civil settlement in 2012 ought to have prompted greater curiosity, because it suggested the possibility of additional victims.

That concession should have been decisive. Instead, it is neutralised by speculation: the President reasons that if Tudor had been asked further questions, he would likely have denied further offending, and therefore nothing would have changed.

That is not judicial reasoning; it is conjecture.

Safeguarding practice does not excuse a failure to inquire on the basis that the answers might be unhelpful. The duty is to ask, to reassess risk, and to strengthen safeguards when new information emerges — not to assume the outcome in advance.

“Independent judge” — but not institutionally independent

In his separate decision concerning publication, the President described himself as an “independent judge”.

That description is, at best, incomplete.

The President of Clergy Discipline Tribunals is paid by the Archbishops’ Council. The Archbishop of York is not a peripheral figure in that body: he is its chair and president.

This is not an allegation of bad faith. It is a statement of structural conflict of interest. In any other safeguarding or regulatory system, the appearance of independence would be regarded as compromised where a decision-maker is funded by, and institutionally connected to, the leadership of the organisation whose conduct is under scrutiny.

Independence is not only about personal integrity. It is about structure.

Charity law, trustee duties, and neglect of a known structural risk

As Bishop of Chelmsford and later Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell occupied roles carrying not only episcopal responsibility but formal charity trustee duties.

He was — and remains — a member of the House of Bishops by virtue of both offices. The members of the House of Bishops are collectively at the heart of safeguarding policy, legislative reform, and governance oversight.

In addition, by virtue of his office as Archbishop of York, he became not only a member, but also the chair and president of the Archbishops’ Council. The Council is the Church’s principal executive charity body. It is responsible for proposing legislation, coordinating safeguarding policy, and bringing draft Measures to the General Synod.

Recent correspondence from the Charity Commission to General Synod members and diocesan bishops make those trustee expectations explicit.

Trustees must not merely respond to individual incidents. They must act where they know of systemic or structural risks that expose beneficiaries to harm.

The David Tudor case revealed exactly such a structural risk. The Archbishop repeatedly relied on the assertion that he had no legal power to remove or suspend a priest in circumstances where serious safeguarding risk was known and accepted.

That difficulty was not theoretical. It affected him directly. It constrained his own decision-making. And it shaped the outcomes in this case.

Crucially, that meant he also knew — or ought to have known — that every other diocesan bishop was subject to the same incapacity in comparable circumstances.

In charity-law terms, this is the decisive point. A trustee who becomes aware of a governance or legal defect that prevents a charity from protecting beneficiaries is expected to take reasonable and proportionate steps to remedy that defect, not merely to accommodate it.

Those steps include escalation, reform, and — where necessary — legislative change.

As a member of the House of Bishops and chair and president of the Archbishops’ Council, Stephen Cottrell was uniquely positioned to act. He could have pressed for, and required the initiation of, draft legislation to be brought before the General Synod to address the inability to remove or suspend clergy in high-risk safeguarding cases. He could have insisted that the structural weakness exposed by the Tudor case be remedied for the whole Church.

He did not.

The likely defences are predictable: that legislation takes time; that responsibility is collective; that safeguarding reform is complex. None withstand scrutiny. Trustees are not required to guarantee outcomes, but they are required to take reasonable steps when serious risks are known. Here, the risk was known, personal, systemic, and ongoing — and the status quo was accepted.

Measured against Charity Commission expectations, that is neglect of trustee duty: knowledge of a serious safeguarding risk combined with a failure to take reasonable steps to eliminate or mitigate it.

A disciplinary system not fit for purpose — and not fixed by reform

This case exposes a deeper truth. The Clergy Discipline system is not fit for purpose in serious safeguarding cases.

Threshold decisions are opaque. Power is concentrated in a single office. Conflicts of interest are structural. And senior leaders are effectively insulated from scrutiny by design.

Nor will this be cured by the proposed Clergy Conduct Measure. Despite changes in language, the critical architecture remains: a powerful president, a high gateway threshold, and limited transparency. In cases like this, the “tribunal” is largely theoretical.

Two unavoidable conclusions

Two conclusions follow inexorably.

First, the Clergy Discipline system — and its proposed replacement — cannot deliver credible accountability in serious safeguarding cases. It is structurally flawed and institutionally defensive.

Second, the position of the Archbishop of York is untenable. Not because of malice or bad faith, but because he presided over — and failed to correct — a system that placed institutional continuity above safeguarding integrity.

Leadership requires more than regret. It requires responsibility.

In this case, responsibility now requires resignation.

TL;DR — Why the Tudor decision matters

A senior Church of England disciplinary decision has concluded that there was “no case to answer” in relation to the Archbishop of York’s handling of the David Tudor safeguarding case. That conclusion does not withstand scrutiny.

The President of Clergy Discipline Tribunals rewrote the legal threshold he was required to apply. Instead of asking whether there was a case to answer — the statutory test in the Clergy Discipline Measure — he applied a stricter, invented standard: whether there was a “real prospect” that a tribunal would ultimately find misconduct. That test appears in neither the Measure nor the Clergy Discipline Rules. It allowed him to decide the merits himself, at the gateway stage, without a tribunal ever hearing the case.

The decision repeatedly acknowledges serious failings: that mistakes were made, that decisions were “regrettable”, and that the Archbishop “could and should have been more curious” when new information suggested the possibility of further victims. Yet it then treats “good faith” as effectively dispositive — a near-complete defence — despite the fact that misconduct under the Measure expressly includes neglect or inefficiency in the performance of office. In safeguarding and regulatory contexts, good faith does not cancel neglect.

Most troubling is the treatment of power and status. The decision accepts that safeguarding restrictions on Tudor were so serious that he was not suitable for normal parish ministry — yet concludes that appointing and reappointing him to senior diocesan roles, and conferring an honorary canonry, could not amount to misconduct.

That reasoning ignores a basic safeguarding principle: status, authority, and honour increase trust and influence, and therefore increase risk. Managed risk is not the same as suitability for leadership.

The President also describes himself as an “independent judge”, but the office is funded through the Archbishops’ Council, which is chaired and presided over by the Archbishop of York. That is not an allegation of bad faith, but it is a clear structural conflict of interest that would be unacceptable in most safeguarding or regulatory systems.

Finally, the case exposes a deeper governance failure. As Bishop of Chelmsford and later Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell knew that bishops lacked effective legal powers to remove clergy in high-risk safeguarding cases. That problem affected him directly. It also affected every other bishop. As a senior charity trustee and chair of the Church’s main executive body, he was in a position to press for legislative reform to fix that defect. He did not. Under Charity Commission standards, knowingly accepting a serious, systemic safeguarding risk without taking reasonable steps to remedy it amounts to neglect of trustee duty.

Two conclusions follow. First, the Church’s disciplinary system is not fit for purpose in serious safeguarding cases — and proposed reforms will not fix that. Second, the position of the Archbishop of York is untenable. Not because of malice, but because accountability, safeguarding credibility, and public trust now require responsibility to be taken.

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The criticism I make of the Church’s handling of this safeguarding complaint does not arise from a single decision, nor from a single failure of judgment. It is the product of a sequence of complaints, processes and refusals stretching back to 2019, in which the Church of England — at various levels — repeatedly chose institutional convenience over clarity, learning and pastoral responsibility. In doing so, senior Church figures not only kept the truth hidden; they conspired — whether knowingly or through systematic incompetence — to concoct lies.

At every stage, senior figures spoke about safeguarding culture and lessons learned. At every stage where those words required action, they failed to act.

The most recent and most visible failures are those of the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, and the Archbishop-Elect of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally. Both refused to apologise and refused to commission an independent lessons-learned review when given the opportunity to do so, even though such a review was promised to the victim in this case at least as far back as 2021.

That refusal was not an isolated lapse. It was the endpoint of a pattern that runs through the handling of three distinct complaints under the Clergy Discipline Measure, and through the reasoning of the President of Tribunals, who declined to take further action against the Archdeacon of Nottingham.

Three complaints, one pattern

The first complaint was made in 2020 by the Archdeacon of Nottingham, Phil Williams, against the Revd Anthony Giles, Rector of Epperstone, Gonalston, Oxton and Woodborough. The underlying facts were serious. A parishioner had disclosed sexual abuse, indecent exposure and coercive sexually explicit communication by her vicar.

She approached the Church with a straightforward question: “This is what my vicar did — is that OK?” She was told by safeguarding officers that it was sexual assault and an abuse of position of trust.

Yet when the matter reached senior ecclesiastical figures, it was reframed. After reading the narrative put forward by the archdeacon, the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, Paul Williams (no relation), described the complaint as concerning “an intimate relationship outside of marriage”. The Deputy President of Tribunals, Judge David Turner, described the behaviour as “consensual”. That reframing minimised the safeguarding dimension and set the tone for what followed.

What was reported as sexual assault and indecent exposure — and investigated as such by Nottinghamshire Police — was treated by the Church as a priest not seeking safeguarding advice when he was aware that a vulnerable woman had romantic feelings towards him. 

The actual complaint that Mr Giles had to face in his clergy disciplinary tribunal was:

The actual complaint that Mr Giles had to face in his clergy disciplinary tribunal was that:

1. In 2015, at a time when he was aware of feelings of romantic affection towards him from Ms AB, a vulnerable woman, he:
   1. failed to seek assistance or advice from the diocesan safeguarding team as to how to respond appropriately to her; and
   2. in failing to seek assistance or advice, placed the concerns of his own reputation above the pastoral needs of Ms AB; and
2. During 2017, he:
   1. sent text messages to Ms AB which were inappropriate in frequency and content; and
   2. in doing so, failed accordingly to observe or maintain appropriate professional boundaries.

This was a complete distortion of the complaint, but Ms AB was unable to challenge it. She tried: she complained to the bishop, to the archdeacon, to the diocesan safeguarding team, to the national safeguarding team, to the Archbishop of York, to anybody who would listen. But nobody did listen. She had no voice in the Church’s process. No victim has a voice in the Church of England’s safeguarding processes. They are silenced.

That complaint resulted in Mr Giles being prohibited from acting as a priest for six months — but he was not removed from office. This, despite the statutory penalty guidance putting it the other way around: a tribunal should decide whether a priest should be removed from office and then decide whether it should also prohibit the priest from ministry, either for a limited term or permanently. Looking through the published tribunal judgments, this is the only case where a priest received a prohibition from ministry but who remained in office. In effect, his punishment was a six-month paid holiday, on top of the time he previously spent suspended pending the outcome of the tribunal.

The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham and the Archbishop of York have both expressed privately to Ms AB that they do not want Mr Giles to continue in ministry. But neither of them has done anything to bring about his removal from ministry. He continues to “serve” his parishes to this day. Meanwhile, Ms AB has been forced to leave her home and relocate to another town, and has rarely stepped foot in a church as a result of her treatment at the hands of the Church’s processes (Matthew 18:6 springs to mind).

The second complaint was brought by me in 2020/21. It concerned the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham’s handling of the case, including his decision to question the victim himself, contrary to recommendations in previous lessons-learned reviews, his failure to ensure appropriate pastoral care was provided to the victim, and his mishandling of safeguarding responsibilities. That complaint was rejected by the Archbishop of York.

In a covering letter dated 18 December 2020, sending the bishop’s response to the complaint to the archbishop, the bishop’s solicitor said: “the bishop would want to extend an unreserved apology to [the victim] if she felt that the support she received was inadequate.” Despite that assurance, the bishop has never apologised to the victim. He apologised for what Anthony Giles did, but not for his own actions, nor for the inadequacy of the support she received.

The third complaint was made by me in August 2025. It concerned the Archdeacon of Nottingham’s continued refusal to provide the victim with a copy of his original complaint and the misrepresentation of her account within Church processes. This complaint reached the current President of Tribunals, Sir Stephen Males.

He decided to take no further action. His decision, and his reasoning, expose how deeply embedded these problems are. It is this third complaint that this blog post explores.

“It is not clear”: uncertainty as a shield

The President of Tribunals’ decision notice halting my complaint about the Archdeacon of Nottingham relies heavily on a single device: the assertion that key matters are “not clear”. That phrase appears repeatedly and does crucial work. It allows the decision to avoid grappling with evidence without having to reject it.

One example is central. The President states that “it is not clear whether Ms AB was ever told of” the earlier decision of the Deputy President. He goes on to say: “It would appear that she was not told because, if she had been, she and the Complainant [me] would have understood that the Respondent had included her allegations in the 2020 Complaint and the present Complaint might have been avoided. Plainly she ought to have been told and, if she was not, that was a failing.”

Yet the evidence before him was clear because in paragraphs 21–22 of her witness statement, Ms AB explains that the Deputy President’s decision notice was sent to her, that she read it, and that it caused her significant distress.

She describes the sense of being blamed and disbelieved, and the way the wording in the Deputy President’s decision notice compounded the earlier harm. This is direct, first-hand evidence. The Deputy President’s decision could not help her to understand that the archdeacon had included her allegations. Her allegations were of sexual assault. Sexual assault can never be described as “consensual”.

The President does not say that he rejects Ms AB’s statement. Nor does he explain why it should be regarded as unreliable. He simply declares the matter “not clear”.

That approach recurs elsewhere. The President says it is “not clear” what the complainant was told by safeguarding officers when she first raised her concerns, despite her statement setting out a consistent account: that she was told the conduct amounted to sexual assault and abuse of trust. He says it is “not clear” whether procedural handling caused harm, despite detailed evidence describing the impact on her mental health, family life and faith.

In another passage, the President treats references in the chronology to instructions attributed to the Bishop as of unclear basis, despite those references being identified in the witness statement and supported by an annexed chronology quoting dated instructions that were provided to me (the complainant) by the bishop — and my statement set out the documentary basis for those claims. Again, no evaluation is offered; uncertainty is simply asserted.

The most troubling aspect of this reasoning is not disagreement with the complainant’s case, but the absence of analysis. The decision does not weigh evidence or explain why it fails to meet the required standard. Instead, “not clear” becomes a full stop. It functions as a way of preserving institutional comfort while avoiding accountability.

An aborted judicial review

I had intended to bring a judicial review against the President’s decision. The concern was not merely the outcome, but the manner in which evidence appeared to be disregarded rather than evaluated. That is not what should be expected of a decision-maker who also serves as a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.

I engaged in pre-litigation correspondence with the Archbishops’ Council and the Office of the President of Tribunals, primarily through their external solicitors, Sharpe Pritchard LLP.

Ultimately, I did not progress the application for a judicial review — not because my concerns lacked substance, but because the potential remedy available to the court was so limited. If the court had found that the president’s decision was unlawful, the most it could have ordered was a fresh decision by the same decision-maker.

The court could not substitute its own assessment of the evidence. Faced with the prospect of further delay, further exposure and the likelihood that the same focus of protecting the Church would be repeated, I did not proceed to litigation.

That context matters. When a system concentrates so much power in a single decision-maker, and offers so little meaningful oversight, no ability for challenge or appeal, and no ability for those decisions to be scrutinised by being made in the open, the quality of that decision-maker’s engagement with evidence becomes critical. In this case, the repeated invocation of uncertainty in the face of specific, sworn evidence undermines confidence in the process itself.

A missed opportunity for apology and learning

It was against this background that the Archbishop of York and the Archbishop-Elect of Canterbury were approached. The request made to them was modest and reasonable. It had two parts: an apology acknowledging the harm suffered and the Church’s failures in responding to it, and the commissioning of an independent lessons-learned review as had been promised in 2021. The request was, in effect, an invitation for the Church to honour its own commitments.

Both leaders refused.

The wording of their responses was strikingly similar.

On 10 October 2025, the Archbishop of York wrote:

“It appears you are proposing litigation against the Archbishops’ Council. It would be inappropriate for me to enter into dialogue with you over this, and therefore … I won’t be answering your questions, or any further questions which relate to or arise in relation to any claims you may make.”

On 27 October 2025, the Archbishop-Elect of Canterbury replied:

“It appears that you are proposing litigation against the Archbishops’ Council. And whilst I am not yet a member it would be inappropriate for me to enter into dialogue with you over this, and therefore … I won’t be answering your questions, or any further questions which relate to or arise in relation to any claims you may make.”

Both of the Church of England’s most senior bishops stated that because litigation was proposed, it would be “inappropriate” to enter into dialogue, and therefore no questions would be answered. No apology was offered. No review was commissioned. Engagement ceased.

That position was not legally compelled. An apology does not amount to an admission of liability. Commissioning a lessons-learned review does not prejudice legal proceedings. These are well-established points, repeatedly made in safeguarding reviews — including safeguarding reviews commissioned by the Church of England, purportedly so they could learn lessons from past mistakes and not repeat those mistakes again. The refusal was a choice.

Words without weight

What makes that choice so damaging is the contrast with the public statements of those involved. The Archbishop of York has spoken eloquently about humility, repentance and the need for the Church to listen to survivors. The Archbishop-Elect of Canterbury has emphasised cultural change and the importance of trust. Those words are on the record. They are frequently cited as evidence that the Church has learned from past failures.

Yet when faced with a real case demanding precisely that response, both leaders retreated behind legal process. They chose distance over dialogue, silence over apology, and delay over learning.

This is precisely the pattern identified and criticised in countless lessons-learned reviews: fear of litigation inhibiting apology; process displacing pastoral care; institutional defensiveness compounding harm. The tragedy is not that the Church was warned. It is that those warnings were ignored when they mattered.

Conclusion: lessons ignored, not learned

Taken together, these events form a coherent picture. A safeguarding complaint reframed as consensual. Concerns about handling dismissed. Evidence treated as “not clear” despite being detailed and specific. Apology withheld. An independent review promised and not delivered. Senior leaders stepping back when moral leadership was required.

The Archbishop of York and the Archbishop-Elect of Canterbury are not responsible for every decision taken along the way. But they are responsible for how they responded when the failures were laid before them.

They had the authority — and a moral duty — to apologise. They chose not to.

They had the authority — and under current guidance, I would argue, an obligation — to commission an independent review. They chose not to.

Safeguarding reform cannot rest on speeches and statements alone. It is tested in moments like this, when apology is uncomfortable and learning carries risk. In this case, the Church’s most senior figures failed that test.

Until that failure is acknowledged, the promise that lessons have been learned will remain exactly that: a promise, repeated, but not kept. And for this victim — as for so many victims of the Church of England’s safeguarding processes — the truth remains untold.

And the sad fact remains: when Stephen Cottrell and Sarah Mullally were confronted with a moment requiring moral leadership, pastoral courage and institutional honesty, they both chose to walk by on the other side. They opted for silence, refused to apologise, declined to commission the promised independent review and then withdrew entirely.

Neither has contacted me, nor the victim, since it became clear that the proposed judicial review would not proceed.

• This post was edited on 27 January to correct some typographical errors, including the name of the Archdeacon of Nottingham.

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One of the least understood – and most consequential – features of the Church of England is the way its legislation becomes law.

Measures passed by the General Synod do not remain internal church rules. Once approved by Parliament, they have the same legal force as Acts of Parliament. They can shape safeguarding systems, disciplinary regimes, rights of access to information, and the treatment of victims and survivors.

Yet Parliament does not scrutinise these Measures in the way it scrutinises Bills.

This is not because Parliament chooses not to. It is because the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 does not allow it to.

My first background briefing explains why that matters.

The 1919 Act created a constitutional settlement that reflected the assumptions of a very different era. Under it, Parliament may approve or reject a Measure, but it may not amend it. It may identify defects, but it may not require them to be corrected. Even when serious concerns are raised, Parliament’s only option is an all-or-nothing decision.

Worse still, the Act restricts transparency. A Parliamentary committee examining a Measure cannot necessarily publish its conclusions independently. In effect, an external body – the Church of England – is placed in a position of controlling whether and how Parliament’s concerns are made public.

That is constitutionally extraordinary.

This briefing does not argue that Parliament should rewrite ecclesiastical legislation. It does not trespass into theology. What it does is set out, carefully and factually, how the current framework limits democratic accountability, and why those limits have real consequences.

In particular, it explains how safeguarding and disciplinary systems have been enacted with the force of statute, while being insulated from the normal corrective processes that apply to other legislation.

If you want to understand why Parliament keeps approving legislation it cannot fix – and why “scrutiny” in this context often amounts to little more than observation – this briefing provides the necessary background.

It is written to be durable, accessible, and usable.

• You can download the full briefing here.

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