PERSISTING with the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) was not in the “best interests of independence or scrutiny or survivors”, the lead bishop for safeguarding, Dr Joanne Grenfell, said on Monday.
Speaking in her first interview since assuming the safeguarding brief in April, Dr Grenfell, who is Area Bishop of Stepney, in east London, could not give a timeframe for when fully independent oversight might be put in place.
“I want us to do it well, not just quickly. . . I think institutionally, in governance terms and culture terms, we have got a long way to go.”
On 21 June, it was announced that Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves, two of the three members of the ISB, were being sacked (News, 21 June).
In an interview at London Diocesan House on Monday afternoon, Dr Grenfell reiterated the line taken by the Archbishops’ Council and the Archbishop of York, who blamed a breakdown of relationships for the board’s disbanding.
The ISB was established two years ago, and was originally intended to become fully independent last year (News, 26 February 2021). In an interview on Radio 4 on 25 June, Archbishop Cottrell said that the ISB was in a “two-stage process towards full independence”, but that “because of a tragic breakdown in communication with those who are the members in stage one . . . with huge reluctance, and after trying many, many other ways forward, the Archbishops’ Council took the decision” to sack them.
Mr Reeves and Ms Sanghera have disputed this description of the relationship, and insisted that they had been willing to work with the Archbishops’ Council on the next phase of the ISB’s work (News, 28 June).
Dr Grenfell, however, took the view that the dispute notice issued by the two board members in May made the relationship untenable (News, 24 May).
“I think that confirmed for me that we’d reached a point where relationships had broken down to the point where it wasn’t actually in the best interests of independence or scrutiny or survivors to carry on as we were,” she said.
She said that she had “huge respect” for Mr Reeves and Ms Sanghera’s “passion for survivor-advocacy, bringing about culture change in the Church of England”, and said that “it really felt like we were making progress” in moving towards fully independent scrutiny.
In an email sent on 6 June, and shown to the Church Times by a third party, the secretary-general of the Archbishops’ Council, William Nye, criticises Mr Reeves and Ms Sanghera for not working constructively with the acting chair of the ISB, Meg Munn, on proposals for “phase two”.
Ms Munn’s appointment was a cause of controversy, owing to a perceived conflict of interest with her position as chair of the National Safeguarding Panel — a body created to scrutinise and provide guidance on safeguarding policy. She also has a seat on the National Safeguarding Steering Group, which decides strategy (News, 2 May). In their dispute notice, Mr Reeves and Ms Sanghera had objected to her appointment.
“I know [Ms Munn’s appointment] had a very strong reaction, but I think that the problems with the ISB actually go back further than that,” Dr Grenfell said on Monday.
She suggested that the way in which the ISB was originally established meant that “some things weren’t thought through as fully as they might have been in the beginning.”
In her view, it was “entirely reasonable” for the Archbishops’ Council to have put in place an interim chair. She did not accept that there was a conflict of interest because of Ms Munn’s involvement with the National Safeguarding Panel. That position was independent, and was due to end in the autumn anyway, she said.
Asked why the Council had not proceeded with a suggestion from Ms Sanghera and Mr Reeves that Ms Munn focus on phase-two proposals while they continued the work on reviews of survivors’ cases, Dr Grenfell suggested: “We were well on our way to agreeing on that when they issued the dispute notice. That, for me, is the bit I don’t understand.”
It is understood that, by the terms of their contracts, if the dispute notice could not be resolved in 30 days, the parties would proceed to independent mediation. Mr Reeves and Ms Sanghera were sacked 28 days after issuing the notice.
Questioned on why sacking them, rather than pursuing independent mediation, was the appropriate response, Dr Grenfell said: “I think when that much water has passed under the bridge, it’s hard to get to the point of trusting again.”
Dr Grenfell also criticised Mr Reeves and Ms Sanghera for not having met Ms Munn to discuss proposals for phase two, since March. On Monday of last week, Ms Sanghera said that they had met, but that the working relationship had quickly broken down, and that she and Mr Reeves had asked Mr Nye to mediate between them.
“I can’t comment on that because I haven’t been part of those conversations,” Dr Grenfell said. “I can only say I have no issue whatsoever with Meg Munn’s leadership style.”
AFTER the announcement of the news that Mr Reeves and Ms Sanghera were being sacked, the deputy lead bishop for safeguarding, the Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt Revd Julie Conalty, said in an interview on the Radio 4 programme The World at One: “I think culturally we are resistant as a Church to accountability, to criticism.”
In posts on Twitter on the same day, Bishop Conalty wrote: “Today the Church is less accountable” and “Today the Church seems less safe.”
Asked whether she agreed with Bishop Conalty’s assessment, Dr Grenfell said that she “welcomed” the comments, because “I think we need to hear that challenge.
“We need to recognise the wrongs being done,” she said. “I don’t want to overcomplicate it: I think it’s a very simple question for survivors. Should we be more accountable? Yes, of course. But working out how you do that in a really effective way is still something I’m trying to get to grips with.”
Dr Grenfell suggested that the Church had undergone a “cultural shift” in the past decade, with a recognition at all levels of the indispensability of safeguarding; but there was more that could be done so that the “thread of trust is woven even more strongly through everything that we do”.
She also disputed the idea that all trust had been lost, saying that collaborative work with survivors remained ongoing — for instance, in a working group on issues surrounding the seal of the confessional — and that such work “does build foundations of trust”.
“If you talk to those people . . . the story actually of rebuilding trust in the Church of England around safeguarding is really quite different from the impression you get if you just dip into Twitter, or one or two blogs,” she said.
“My focus is real conversations, proper relationships, humility in that learning; and trust does develop properly from that.” There are, she said, “a lot of people” who want to engage because “they believe it’s possible, and they believe that there are others in the institution who want to work with them constructively for things to change.
“The work of working with victims and survivors, and the broader kind of communication and consultation stuff, I don’t believe that’s ever going to be well done on social media.”
On Friday, Phil Johnson, who chairs the support and advocacy group Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors (MASCAS), said that “the only way forward is to involve survivors as much as possible.” He reported, though: “A great many survivors feel that the Church doesn’t want independent scrutiny.”
Those who had been promised reviews by the ISB “have been left in limbo”, he said, and felt “abandoned and betrayed” by sackings.
On Monday of last week, a statement was released by the ISB, saying that it would “continue to honour any reviews or complaints that are under way or are due to start”. The next day, however, Mr Reeves questioned how practical this was, given the strict data-protection protocols whereby survivors have to give express permission for their details to be shared, even within the ISB.
Dr Grenfell acknowledged these concerns. Staff in the National Safeguarding Team (NST) were working on ways to contact survivors to let them know that “there will be something set up that allows the reviews to continue and done safely,” she said.
On Friday, a survivor, Gilo, posted screenshots of an email inviting survivors to meetings with members of the Archbishops’ Council, including the Archdeacon of London, the Ven. Luke Miller.
Archdeacon Miller had been present at the “brain dump” of safeguarding concerns by Martin Sargeant, a former head of operations for the diocese of London.
Mr Sargeant made unfounded allegations about a former priest in the diocese, Fr Alan Griffin, who took his own life after hearing he would be subject to an investigation. A coroner’s report warned that more clergy deaths would follow unless action was taken to improve C of E safeguarding procedures (News, 23 July 2021).
In an open letter to Dr Grenfell and the director of the National Safeguarding Team, Alexander Kubeyinje, published on Twitter, Gilo wrote that it was “highly inappropriate and insensitive for victims to be invited to a meeting with Archdeacon Miller”.
The Archdeacon subsequently withdrew from the meeting.
DESPITE the demise of the ISB, Dr Grenfell said that safeguarding in the Church of England was “largely working really well. . .
“If you go back to those core things about managing risk and preventing harm, then I think that’s being done well, and increasingly well, in dioceses. But, of course, there’s always things that could improve,” she said.
She lauded the diocesan structures that were now in place, and pointed to planned changes, expected to be approved by the General Synod on Friday, which would mean that safeguarding “advisers” would be promoted to “officers”, with an increase in their responsibilities and authority.
Dr Grenfell said that she understood her position as being focused on the culture, governance, and the communication of safeguarding.
Describing herself as a “governance nerd”, Dr Grenfell said that it was “massively important” to look at the systems and structures that were in place; but acknowledged that she was not a safeguarding professional, and that the work of investigating cases or following them through was not part of her remit.
When abuse is connected with faith, “it’s even more devastating”, she said, “because it potentially destroys your trust in God, and in the community of the Church”.
She spoke of having a “kind of fury” when she saw safeguarding “done badly”, because then “people won’t trust that the Church is what it says it is to be, which is the body of Christ”.
Dr Grenfell will attend a meeting of the General Synod for the first time at the end of this week. She was elected unopposed from among the southern suffragans, after the former Area Bishop of Bradwell, Dr John Perumbalath, became the Bishop of Liverpool (News, 18 October 2022).
“I’ve never been to General Synod before, and never particularly looked to be on General Synod. I’m not a particularly political animal, but I do get that safeguarding is an integral part of what it does, and to be able to contribute to that feels important,” she said.
Mr Reeves and Ms Sanghera have suggested that the timing of their dismissal might have been planned in order to prevent their appearance at Synod. Dr Grenfell dismissed this suggestion, saying that “they have been very free to speak their minds. . . It’s important that Synod and the wider Church hears the things that need to be said that are critical of the Church of England, where there is huge room for improvement in terms of safeguarding.
“I hope there’s a humility to be able to say sorry when it’s wrong — and it has often been wrong,” she said.