THE charitable status of all English cathedrals does not inoculate their governance against mistakes — but the structured accountability will make them “more resilient and agile” in responding to problems, the chief executive of the Charity Commission, David Holdsworth, has said.
He was giving the address at Southwark Cathedral, on Tuesday of last week, at a service to mark the registration as charities of all 41 Church of England cathedrals.
The Cathedrals Measure 2021 was designed to foster greater transparency in governance and day-to-day operations, by introducing formal accountability to the Charity Commission through the registration of cathedrals as charitable entities.
The project began when Mr Holdsworth was Chief Operating Officer and Registrar at the Commission.
“I am both impressed, and very pleased, that a few years later — a mere blink of the eye in the history of cathedrals — we are now celebrating the conclusion of that work, as all 41 cathedrals successfully join the register of charities,” he told the congregation.
This was, he said, a “milestone” in the history of cathedrals in communities and society, and in the development of charity law and practice.
He described the previous “formal exclusion of cathedrals from the family of charity — from registration with the Commission and from accountability for compliance with the rules that apply to all other charities” as “something of an anomaly”.
Speaking of his own experience of cathedrals, Mr Holdsworth said that, growing up in Liverpool in the 1980s, “with very visible sectarian divides, racial divides, and class divides, I saw first-hand the amazing work of the two cathedrals and their titular heads”: the then Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Revd David Sheppard (1975 to 1997), and the RC Archbishop of Liverpool, the Rt Revd Derek Worlock.
“I saw how these great institutions, and, importantly, those that lead them, can build on what is similar, not what divides; can create reconciliation, not division. Creating hope and unity across communities. It is not an accident that the street that once separated the two cathedrals, the two faiths, at either end — Hope Street — now connects them.”
Cathedrals, he said, were “not just bricks and mortar” or places of grandeur, worship, musical excellence, and ceremony — they were also people-run organisations, which required accountability to thrive.
This had been the conclusion of the Cathedrals Working Group, first meeting in 2017, he said, when it presented the draft measure to the General Synod. This gained final approval in 2020 (News, 4 December 2020).
“I am confident that your new registered-charity status will bring benefits both direct and subtle, including funding and support, and strengthened public trust,” he said.
“But, while registration with the Commission is a hugely important milestone, it is not in itself a destination. Your journey as charities has only just begun. . . Operating as a charity is a long-term commitment that is never ‘done’. . . There will be mistakes, there will be problems. Good governance does not, sadly fully inoculate an organisation against those eventualities.
“But it does — and this I know from years of experience — make an organisation more resilient and more agile in responding to problems when these arise, and in putting things right.”