So, for anyone who was wondering how my making-my-mind-up went for the Safeguarding debate at this February Synod, here’s an update.

Discussion of safeguarding at Synod began with the debate on the Makin Report on Monday, where I moved an amendment to the motion with almost unanimous support. The original motion struck me as very very bland: ‘That this Synod, repenting of the failures of safeguarding in the Church of England detailed in the Makin report, ask those in leadership roles across the Church of England to redouble work to implement best safeguarding practice in line with national policies and guidance, and note the further and forthcoming reforms set out in GS 2376.’

The amendment I succeeded in adding was, at the end, to insert:

(b) at the specific request of victims and survivors of John Smyth QC, recognise that the institutional failure to enact adequate disciplinary process means that this and other cases cannot simply be labelled ‘historic’ as they have continuing effects on the lives of those victims and survivors who suffer the consequences of the prolonged cover-up by the Church of England.

That was accepted and became part of the motion. So far, so good, acknowledging victims and survivors and their continuing re-abuse as yet more safeguarding failures come out – which they do.

But what of the main safeguarding debate, which happened the next day, where the original motion was to adopt Option 4? That’s another story. I hadn’t been intending to speak in the debate, but I was sufficiently disturbed by the amendment proposed by Philip North, the Bishop of Blackburn, to stand to respond, and I was called. At that point, we’d all received many letters and documents with legal advice, and had been offered and accepted opportunities to attend zoom briefings. This was a complicated debate with lots of ‘this item can only be considered if the previous item fails/succeeds’. The ‘friendly amendment’ suggesting a switch to Option 3 was rejected. It was clear from the debate, and from chats with other members, that many of us were still conflicted, hearing from our dioceses and from INEQE audits that there is much excellent practice coming from the highly qualified and experienced Diocesan Safeguarding Officers – but also aware of ‘the optics’ of ignoring the widespread view that we have shown as a church that we can’t mark our own homework. Both Options 3 and 4 included independent scrutiny of safeguarding, which is clearly needed, not least as the ‘Independent Safeguarding Board’, the ISB, was closed down as not being what the church had apparently intended it to be. Lots of warning signals there about rushing into things, but also about how ‘independent’ can mean different things to different people.

What Bishop Philip proposed was a ‘3.5’, adopting Option 3 but with the intention of eventually moving towards Option 4. Typical Anglican via media? Sensible compromise? Dog’s dinner? It isn’t clear. What we had here was one of those ‘saviour moments’ of which I have been warned to be very cautious. In a complex and heated debate, someone proposes a new way through, which hasn’t been thought about much before, which wasn’t on the table (maybe for very good reasons) but which suddenly seems like a good idea.

I was disturbed at the way 3.5 was presented. The message was that, if we went with the amendment, we could have the system proposed in Option 3 “now, not in several years time”, straightaway, at once – the wording of Bishop Philip’s speech – whereas Option 4 will take longer to set up. But that’s misleading: we can’t; even Option 3 will take maybe two years to set up. It seems to me very odd to propose that we do one thing while investigating another. How is that fair to those professionals who work for us, who are left without knowing what the eventual ‘destination’ is? The Lead Safeguarding Bishop made it clear that either 3 or 4 represented more of a direction of travel. I am tired of the endless journey images used in our church and we had some more in this debate, with the idea of the destination being Leeds but we are going there via Manchester; I’d just ask here, but how do we know whether the connections will work?

And of course at the heart of all this should be victims and survivors. They are not of one mind – why should they be, as some have had good experiences within their diocese, with better treatment than they have had from the national church and its officers? One of the arguments for Option 4 was that of consistency; rather than having such variation across the country. Over the course of the debate, I moved towards Option 4, not because of the optics but because of the consistency argument.

The motion was amended to be about 3.5. And now we wait to find out what that really means…