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Category: Governance

  • Beyond Jay: Here’s What the Response Group and Synod Need to Do for a Safer Church

    by Gilo, hymn writer, co-editor with Janet Fife of the book Letters to a Broken Church, and co-creator of the House of Survivors website

    Three diocesan bishops seek my take, with varying degrees of regularity, on developments in the Church of England’s safeguarding and response to survivors. I’m careful to point out that any views I express are mine, mine alone, and do not represent those of any organisation or group. I neither seek nor receive any funds in the process. So the thinking expressed here is not the only viewpoint, nor necessarily the right one (if such exists). It is simply mine, in a field which is likely to be contentious in the forthcoming Synod.

    The three bishops have each asked what I think of the Jay report. In my view the Jay is undeliverable and, even if it were, would it necessarily result in something better than the current mess? Professor Alexis Jay has done the reverse of what she did in IICSA. The IICSA recommendations were limp and didn’t go far enough. Now she’s gone too far, and by proposing Org A she’s given CofE a possible excuse to slow down the crucial Org B. She is a political naïf, and in my view the recommendations in the Jay report arose perhaps as a form of psychological penance for not being ambitious enough in IICSA. I think this report will set the Church back, not move it forward. If you follow its course logically, then other institutions may seek Org A structures in the name of ‘independence’ and we’d end up with a multitude of safeguarding bodies creating further confusion. I think no amount of Org A, and no amount of expenditure on Org A (which would put current CofE safeguarding expenditure into deep shade) can stand in place of properly designed mandatory reporting in the statutory framework. This is the key. The best course of action the Church could be taking is banging loudly on Home Office doors to argue a case for an end to the ‘potemkin village’ Whitehall is wanting to create and instead to introduce effective mandatory reporting. Whitehall wants mandatory reporting in name only, in a watered-down version of the IICSA recommendation which was already itself a watery version.

    The Church has undoubtedly arrived at a car crash moment. Where does responsibility for this lie? Failed leadership. Synod must remind itself that failure at the heart of the axis of power, represented by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in conjunction with the Secretary-General, has brought the Church to such a desperate situation. Had they resolved their differences with the ISB in a transparent and safe way there would have been no need for the Jay report.

    Let’s turn to the much-needed Org B, which is where I believe focus must be directed. Org B, as an essential body for scrutiny and oversight and the all-important handling of complaints is urgently needed, and is long overdue. The Church must give such a body effective powers if it is to avoid creating another toothless tiger (NSP anyone?). At present I believe the power to place a diocese into special measures lies within the gift of the Archbishop. This happened memorably to Chichester Diocese under Rowan Williams. This is the kind of bite Org B requires. Not the set of rubber dentures which Archbishops’ Council and their NCIs will be looking to manufacture.

    And no veto by an Archbishop. It may well be that one of the places needing such Special Measures might be the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, alongside London Diocese which would seem a prime candidate for emergency action. London is not alone in being crashy, but it’s up there amongst the worst. We only need one diocese placed publicly into Special Measures and any other dioceses currently lagging behind in handling of cases or responses to survivors will tighten up their bootlaces in a weekend. The routine blanking and obfuscation that still persists in some quarters will quickly end.

    And above all it must end within the NST.

    Whatever shape the Archbishops’ Council eventually decides to give to a new shiny ‘independent’ model, the NST must be removed from the grip of the Secretariat. Its days as an arm of the legals and comms of Church House must end. If it is to have a positive future, it must be repurposed, retrained and given a new vision of itself, with independent management which involves survivors, with all our experience and narrative wisdom. The NST leadership must face their own cognitive dissonance squarely and courageously, and recognise that its deployment by Church House in various aspects of reputation management has been disgraceful and dishonest.

    Whatever happens, ‘Delay’ is likely to be the watchword. Delay by design, but also through incompetence and systemic dysfunctionality. One thing is for definite: the CofE must never again allow one individual to hold as much unaccountable power as is currently compressed into the office of the Secretary-General. He has presided over a rotten borough in the NCIs and puppet-stringed the NST to such an extent that it has become almost impossible for survivors to have much trust in the thing. But the problem is not William Nye alone; it’s the inherited system of which he is a part, albeit a big part. We must factor in too, the lack of leadership by the Archbishops, the Lead Safeguarding Bishop and the NST.

    The House of Bishops is an enfeebled house with a poor grasp of these things. What we’ve seen across the past decade is fewer than a handful of bishops speaking out. Alan ‘Elbows’ Wilson knew that any time the media approached bishops on matters ‘survivor related’’, the traffic would immediately be centrally controlled through Church House comms. He ignored this, and spoke directly to journalists without approval from the centralized machinery of the Secretariat. He was past playing safe games with the structure and was happy to be out on the edge speaking truth to its power. He doubtless took many a kicking but it never seemed to upset him. Julie Conalty has been a courageous voice too, often a lone voice highlighting particular aspects of corruption. But I suspect she’s marginalized by a structure which expects all bishops to stay blandly ‘on message’. She needs a few diocesans to step up and publicly support her when she dares to challenge the status quo.

    Bishops must stop being cowed, stop colluding with toxic culture. They must learn to get over their fear of receiving ‘heavy shepherding’ from one or other of the Archbishops when they speak out of turn. If an Archbishop arrives on your door to bully you into submission to the rules of purple enclosure – then stand up to him. If you stick your head above the parapet, you will be marginalised. Learn to embrace this. The likelihood is that this or that particular bit of funding for your diocese will be squeezed. It’s been indicated to me that this is quietly how the culture of collegiate control operates. So the purple enclosure stays on message and lets any missives be handed out by a Lead Bishop who to all intents and purposes seems mostly missing in action as far as survivors are concerned. When a bishop dares to go off-piste and makes an authentic comment, they experience the polite scowl of the institution. But if enough speak out, especially from the top of the Lead trio, then the toxic culture might begin to change.

    Successive lead bishops have discovered they have nothing but rubber levers to work with! The real levers, those of power and any real change, are held by Archbishops’ Council which in turn is heavily controlled by a shadowy Secretariat. The wheels turn slowly because everything is hardwired to move slowly. Just as the structure is hardwired to protect hierarchy and itself. One of the bishops who listens to me recently asked me what I consider to be the three main obstacles to progress. In my view, these are:

    (1) centralised and dysfunctional power which rules an unchecked empire with disastrous consequences. Look at the handling of the ISB members and the way they were closed down at an hour’s notice.

    (2) siloed mindset of the bishops who occupy a ‘me and my diocese’ headspace. There is little public collegiate expression of responsibility and far too much collegiate fear.

    (3) the transparency gap. Too much of the structure is wedded to reputation management and used to hiding stuff. The institution has failed to grasp that transparency is the best route to salvaging reputation.

    I want to end on a positive note, because the picture is not all gloom. Some dioceses have made huge strides. I’ve been supporting one survivor in recent weeks. We sent an initial letter of disclosure to the relevant diocese, and I advised that we should hopefully expect a response within 48 hrs. The reply came within 15 mins! And was hugely positive. Not only did the diocese agree to therapy costs immediately but they are also meeting us in the home geography of the survivor’s town rather than expecting us to make the journey cross-country. The bishop also sent a positive response as soon as he could. I believe dioceses must continue to retain responsibility for the deliverance of good safeguarding and positive response to survivors. And dioceses that are operating out of a handbook that should have been jettisoned a decade ago should be placed into the equivalent of an ambulance that Org B will need to have on standby for just such an eventuality.

     

     

  • Mini-MBA Talent Pipeline Group, Module Seven: Managing Synods

    by Anon.

    Memo

    Following the recent updated modules on marketing and strategy, and then on safeguarding, a number of you have written in to request that we bring forward the module on Managing Synods. Apparently there has been some alarm at recent meetings of General Synod, with reports coming in of hitherto composed people on the podium looking uncomfortable, and some even appearing to look downright shifty. Some of you have also – and we thank you for this – pointed out that the clergy and laity should not be given opportunity to ask difficult questions, raise awkward issues, or otherwise disrupt the smooth flow and seamless webs of meanings being spun from behind those sitting in the front row (bravely facing the firing line).

    At this stage, we judge the mood of General Synod to be no more than a level-3 “disconcerting”, which is well down from the level-6 “ugly train crash” of July 2023. There remains the possibility of a full-on revolt, or perhaps the slow handclap delivered to Prime Minister Blair at the Wembley Arena by the Women’s Institute, almost 25 years ago.

    Were that to happen to the Archbishops, please don’t worry: pre-emptive measures are already in place to restore the appearance of order. Specifically, in the event of a slow handclap at Synod or similar disruptive revolutionary acts of misconduct, you may like to know that both Archbishops would:

    1. leave the podium at that point, and join Synod members in their protest at the appalling conduct of those seated on the podium.
    2. lead Synod, from the floor, facing those responsible seated on the podium, in an act of quiet and silent reflective prayer-protest, and also pin ribbons and messages to any LOUDFence erected.
    3. make it clear that the Archbishops always stood with victims against the powers of oppression, so of course they are standing with those on the floor of Synod who believe that they now represent the dispossessed, and are being robbed of any proper democratic processes.
    4. Immediately issue a press release stating how much sadness and frustration the Archbishops share with the protesters. (NB: we do not quantify what is meant by “how much” in such gestures – enough to make a PR impact on the day and grab some headlines, naturally; but not enough to make any difference in the future, obviously).

    The drama thus concluded, Synod can return to business as usual, with the scripted motions, appropriate redactions, normal censorship and other attention to detail contained in the paper GS 101 (entitled “Ensuring Appropriate Scrutiny at General Synod” – but not a public document available for members to consult).

    It will be apparent to everyone in the Talent Pipeline that the Secretary-General of the General Synod, who is also the Secretary of the Archbishops’ Council, the CEO of Church House, Lambeth Palace and the remainder of the Church of England, cannot, de facto, have a conflict of interest in any matter under discussion. Like the reigning monarch, or perhaps a President for Life in some distant micro-state that once rashly flirted with democracy and other modern innovations such as an independent judiciary, the Secretary-General cannot do anything about the role and position he finds himself in.

    He did not create this system. He must just inhabit the role as humbly as possible. He rules by the Grace of God and the Consent of the People. Alone. But with the backing of Lambeth Palace lawyers and PR officers also around to help, and a Dark-Ops team who work off the grid, and can remove staff in the blink of an eye.

    However, Talent-Pipeline attendees enrolled on the Mini-MBA module are invited to take a step back from General Synod, and assess it as a whole. The take-homes should be obvious, but in case you cannot spot what is hiding in plain sight, we list a few of the lessons to take away. Watch and learn!

    1. The role of the Secretary General. The Secretary-General never speaks at Synod, yet controls everything that goes on. Like a monarch or some reclusive Japanese Emperor, he rules through force of law, silence and conducting all the real business in toto behind the curtains (Ed: ah, a veiled reference to the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy’s dog? Sec. Gen.: Take this as your first warning).
    2. Voting. Remember, democracy is never one-person-one-vote. You might learn that kind of idealism at Primary School, but General Synod is Real World Politics, my friend. On the floor of Synod, the following rules apply:

    a) The purpose of voting is always to get the right result. The right result is the result required before the voting was allowed to happen in the first place.

    b) Voting is tedious, annoying and time-consuming, as we already know what we want to do, so the only question is how to achieve the correct outcome if people still insist on voting.

    c) Some voting is done by clergy/laity/bishops’ houses, and the lawyers decide which, on advice from the Sec. Gen., sitting behind. The lawyers answer to the Sec. Gen. The Sec. Gen. answers to nobody, symbolised by his silence (Ed: You mean his refusal to speak or listen? Sec. Gen.: Second warning, seriously).

    d) If in doubt, call a Tea Break, then 10 minutes later ring the Division Bell very quietly (so as not to interrupt the fellowship over a cuppa).

    e) It is unclear if abstentions count as votes against, don’t count at all, or can be used as votes not counted in favour. The Sec. Gen. will advise the lawyers on what answer to give, depending on the issue up for debate. For example, if 100 people can vote on same-sex blessings, and fifty vote in favour, that is only 50%, so a fail. If 25 people abstain, and 25 vote against, you might think that 2/3 of the votes cast were in favour. But, duh! The ‘ayes’ only got half the votes. If, however, the same voting patterns were repeated for approving new mission communities to replace tiresome parishes, then the mind of Synod is clearly 2/3 in favour, with only 25% unable to make up their mind, and 25% against. Simple.

    f) Unclear? Good. This is why you need the lawyers on the podium, and experts like the Sec. Gen, to safely guide you through such labyrinths. Thank God democracy is in such safe hands (Sec. Gen.: You are now on your final warning. Don’t even think it).

    1. The agenda. Try to be imaginative about how you use Synod time. Remember, the more time you spend on launching initiatives and making presentations, the more it looks like you have a fresh and urgent energy about you, and are someone who is willing to try something new. It also means there is less time to dwell on difficult topics like money, income, statistics, morale, the mental health of clergy, etc – which just gets everyone down. You need to keep away from that sort of stuff, as people might hold you to account.

    Schedule business right at the end of the day, when everyone wants to go home or has already started drifting off. Or, schedule it just before lunch, as people need a loo-break by then. Or better still, put it right at the start of day, as it implies there is nothing to see here, and “there will be much more substantial things for Synod to be discussing later”.

    If you have passed this module, trust me, there won’t be.

     

     

  • The Unbearable Lightness of Being General Synod

    by Anon

    It was a pretty depressing meeting of General Synod, even by recent standards.  There have now been three expert reports dealing with the harm and trauma caused to safeguarding victims, those who have suffered abuse at the hands of the Church of England’s safeguarding processes, and those falsely accused.

    The Jay Review specifically cited those on the receiving end of the “weaponisation of safeguarding”.

    The Glasgow Report stated that “actual harm and trauma” had been caused to those left in the lurch by the sudden closure of the ISB.

    The Wilkinson Report covered, in forensic detail, how the Secretariat at Lambeth Palace had chosen the day of announcing that closure – 21st June 2023 – as being the cut-off date for trying to prevent Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves speaking at General Synod. The Report states that “the timing of the termination was affected by the dates of General Synod because the ISB members intended to speak at Synod and to terminate their contracts after they had spoken would be problematic” (565.4).

    And the Wilkinson Report went further. There were no risk assessments done: “no risk assessment beyond informal conversations was carried out by or on behalf of the Archbishops’ Council … about the effect of the termination of the ISB contracts on complainants, victims and survivors who were engaged with them, particularly those involved in case reviews” (566.4). Press releases said the victims were contacted and being cared for. Wilkinson found this to be untrue. A lie, in other words. “[W]hen the final decision to terminate the ISB contracts was taken, there was a plan to have a plan to provide interim or transitional arrangements for those case reviews but nothing further was in place” (566.10). “A plan to have a plan” – but no plan.

    General Synod were told that Kevin Crompton, the ‘Commissioner’ appointed by the Secretariat, was now looking after victims. The victims issued a statement to say that was another lie.

    Three experts on safeguarding, nationally, told the Archbishops’ Council and General Synod that the Church of England lacks the resources, expertise, wisdom and independence (a code for ‘integrity’) to manage safeguarding safely, yet Synod voted to keep hold of the processes it does not understand. This shows little care and attention for victims; indeed, it is reabusive.

    Following the February Synod, the whole matter has now been handed over to a ‘Response Group’, a self-appointed group of part-time amateurs, whose agenda is to preserve the privilege that got the church into this mess. This is staggering arrogance. The Lead Bishop for Safeguarding spoke at Synod opposing motions for independence, refusing apologies and denying accountability. Her credibility with victims was zero before Synod began, and now languishes in negative ethical equity, were such a thing possible.

    Others appointed to the ‘Response Group’ have misled Synod before. They’ve assured members there are conflicts of interests policies operating. There are not, and Wilkinson highlights that. The claim has been made on Radio 4 that the Archbishops’ Council have all had trauma-training. Where is the evidence that they have? These abusers stay in place, keeping hold of their power and privilege.

    Some victims have now requested that those responsible for the harm and trauma caused to them, including the Archbishops’ Council and others leading safeguarding, be subjected to safeguarding complaints themselves.  Good luck with that, as they say. When was the last time anyone senior was held accountable for previous mess-ups, cover-ups or stitch-ups?

    The Jay, Wilkinson and Glasgow Reports will be material for the shredder. In the unlikely event of any recommendations surviving, victims can be certain that they will be those that empower the Church, and subjugate the oppressed.

    In December 2023, after the ISB had been shut down for modelling “the wrong kind of independence”, the journalist and activist Andrew Graystone wrote a letter to the Church Times:

    Whatever recommendations emerge from these reports will have to pass through exactly the same defensive and inept governance structures as have brought the Church to this desperate place.

    For years, there has been little evidence of willingness in the Church to change fundamentally. Instead, there is a long history of tinkering at the edges: a new safeguarding post here, a new review there. My greatest fear is that instead of immediately implementing Professor Jay’s proposals, they will be sent out for a typical C of E consultation process — and we will still be debating whether to implement some watered-down version ten years from now.

    The reality, as expressed by Ms Wilkinson and experienced by many victims and survivors of abuse, is that hardly anyone in the senior leadership of the Church has a deep understanding of abuse and trauma, and what it takes to help survivors rebuild their lives. Mandatory trauma training is one of her key recommendations. Day after day, I hear from survivors whose trauma is met with bureaucracy.

    He continued with this compelling analogy:

    It is as if the A and E department of every hospital were staffed entirely by overworked senior managers with no clinical expertise and a heap of other problems to deal with at the same time. All of the survivors I know are exhausted, ground down by navigating the Church’s managerial and adversarial systems. So are the senior leaders. Yet still they project an absolute conviction that they know how to run the hospital better than any outside experts.

    This is correctly diagnosed. Pain, brokenness, trauma and profound suffering are met by extremely poor processes and evasive bureaucrats who lack proper expertise and empathy. It is tragic. But also extremely abusive, as victims testify.

    Yet General Synod voted for more of the same.  I wonder how many members of General Synod would opt to have an operation in a hospital with the worst reputation in the NHS, and with a high rate of unexplained deaths? A hospital with a reputation for making your illness and injuries even worse, and intensifying your pain and trauma?

    None, I expect. Yet Synod voted to have the same people presiding over this safeguarding debacle make recommendations for improvements.  It will end in failure, and more fatalities. Yes, please do remember that people at their wits’ end with Church of England safeguarding processes take their own lives, lose their homes, watch their families implode, and have mental breakdowns.

    More recently, Andrew Graystone pointed out that:

    Such is the chaos in the Church’s safeguarding structures that not only can the Church not treat survivors with justice and mercy: it doesn’t even have a mechanism to learn from its own failings.

    Already, I have been contacted by people alleging that they have been abused in church settings, who have decided not to report their abuse because they have seen how the Church has treated Mr X and others.

    We hear that Professor Alexis Jay is going to investigate, issue a report, and then have it debated and implemented. This will take well over a year. This is an emergency, and it requires a well-resourced expertly run emergency response.

    And now we have the report, but has it even been properly debated, coming out as it did a couple of days before Synod?

    Over £1 million was spent on these reports and on consultants who concluded the Church of England cannot safely deliver such work, and lacks the expertise and resources to do so.

    It is just as well that the Post Office is not being run by the Archbishops’ Council, or subject to the oversight of General Synod. Were it so, Paula Vennells would still be in charge, and given another chance to get things right. Alan Bates would be behind bars, and the public would be told that whilst there had been a few errors, and apologies could be considered, the status quo would be maintained.

     

  • Mini-MBA Course for the Talent Pipeline in the Church of England: Revised Strategy Module

    by Anon.

    Now that the dust has settled on the Post Office scandal (Ed, is this right?), many of you in the Talent Pipeline have been asking for course guidance on the lessons learned. As you know, the mini-MBA has been developed by those seeking to develop pools of talent to run the Church of England, and we have drawn from the commercial and public sector to bring you this new module:

    Lessons Learned: Strategy in the Church of England

    Strap-lines 

    How do you know if the strategy for your diocese or cathedral is working? How can you know that your new strap-line is garnering enough traction, and that clergy and congregations are on the same page?

    We know that strap-lines are just catchy slogans meant to give us an effervescent lift. Like a small caffeine hit, every time you hear or read the strap-line, it should make you more alert, give you a bit of a buzz, and help you to stay awake longer. But, like caffeine, don’t overdo it, as it can cause migraines. Limit yourself to no more than three mentions a day, and avoid strap-line use after 6pm, unless you want to lose sleep.

    Most strap-lines don’t make any sense. They don’t have to. That’s the point. They’re meant to be pick-me-ups, not rational statements. Some are oxymorons. “Growing Younger” (Newcastle) is great, because it is impossible and meaningless. “Wider, Younger, Deeper” (Southwell & Nottingham) is rather risky, and may open you up to mischievous Freudian readings. Your clergy will love that, but it is distracting, so you should try and avoid that sort of thing. Usually, a strap-line with something like “transforming” and “growth” will work, because it can’t be measured, so you avoid becoming a hostage to fortune in future.

    Understanding Church Strategy 

    Strategy is like developing ideas and planning, but much, much better. While planning can be tedious and difficult, strategy is constantly rewarding because someone else does the work. This is one of the ways we can talk about collegiate leadership and collective responsibility in the Church. Remember, true leadership is “we”, not “me, me, me”. Everybody gets to own and participate in the strategy once you have set it out for them. Clergy and laity who reject it can be asked to move on.

    For example, if you face a financial crisis or can no longer recruit clergy to your diocese, it would be easy to get bogged down in the details as to why. A more strategic approach is to streamline the issue, and avoid describing it as a problem at all. Start with a catchy slogan or a brief Mission Statement, such as: ”Attract, Train, Retain, Develop”. Remember, “Crisis” means “opportunity” in Chinese. But don’t use the C-word too much, as it may cause people to revisit your strategy. You don’t want that.

    If you still feel there’s something missing, consider adding the word “Inspire”. Note that this word could go anywhere in your assemblage of terms. Like a versatile midfielder in a football team, “inspire” looks great and performs well in any position: ”Attract, Train, Inspire, Retain, Develop.”

    You could represent all of this in a diagram using the words in a circle, linked by arrows. More advanced strategic thinkers can produce different versions of this diagram, headed ‘phase one’, ‘phase two’, etc. But please be careful, as you don’t want to imply there is a timetable. Nominate a hypothetical deadline year (2030?) by which time it will be delivered. By 2025 it will all be forgotten, and you can devise another strategy.

    Think hard about appointing an officer to deliver all this. You may want to consider a Facilitation-Facilitator, a Facilitator-Initiator, or an Enablement-Enabler. These can be attached to any posts concerned with mission, growth and vision, and for helping parishes to downsize and consolidate resources (i.e., “sharing in mission”).

    Does My Diocese or Cathedral Need a Strategy?

    Strategy is how we set the direction of travel. You cannot go forward without a direction of travel. Going forward is the strategist’s key objective. It doesn’t especially matter where you go, as long as you move forwards, not backwards. Even going forwards blindly over a cliff beats going backwards.

    Avoid discussing the actual rate of travel as this could lead to awkward questions about dates and deadlines. Talk instead about pace or, better still, momentum. How do you quantify momentum? You don’t. Remember, this is your strategy, and it is not concerned with measurement.

    For example, you can announce your intention to create five hundred new Intentional Discipleship Communities over the next five years. Nobody actually knows what this means, and it could cover anything from a new church on a housing estate to four people meeting for coffee at Costa each Wednesday to discuss last week’s sermon. These all count in the figures.

    What are the Best Strategic Words for Me to Use?

    There are certain words that every aspiring strategist needs to know. These are some of the most important.

    • Delivery – in daily life, a delivery is something that arrives, like a parcel from Amazon meant for your neighbour. Or a letter from the Post Office, eventually. Or, some deliverables from a Lessons Learned Safeguarding Review (i.e., timing and content unspecified). But in strategy, delivery is an end in itself. You need to be focused on or committed to that delivery. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by specifics, such as “what is in the box, or in this report, or did I get what I asked for?”. Deliverables arrive. The joy of them is that nobody really knows what’s about to arrive, or when. God is a God of surprises. People must be expectant, otherwise nothing will happen. Like waiting for Santa.
    • Integration – this is the ultimate goal of strategy. Integration solves all known problems, particularly strategic ones. All great integrated strategies start with joined-up thinking. Make sure you emphasise that your thinking is joined-up, as it implies all previous thinking was OK, but not part of a strategic plan. If you have no thoughts of your own that are worth sharing, then claim to be linking-up other people’s ideas. This ticks the box for Enabling and Facilitating – also good words to use. Consider appointing a Facilitator-Enabler for this, and create a new group to review progress and to monitor deliverables. Then create a group to review the review group. That is how momentum is maintained.
    • Safeguarding Strategy – if thinking about a Safeguarding Strategy, then

    [NB: this entire section has been redacted in full by the Archbishops’ Council and Secretary General – please scroll down to Transformation.]

     

    • Transformation –for when mere change just won’t cut it. Nobody ever mastered strategy by worrying about incremental change or orderly progress. You can’t achieve transformation without vision. The great visionaries of the past all dared to dream. There are many recent Vision Statements to draw upon from in the Church of England, and they’re beacons for us all. (Ed. Do you mean these reports and strategy documents are all on the bonfire?)
    • Ambition – a tricky word for those in the Church of England’s Talent Pipeline and studying on the mini-MBA course (you may prefer ‘vocation’?). Either way, start by setting this out in the broadest terms imaginable. Don’t set limits or impose constraints. These can be added in much, much later, in the Operational Phase. Your job is to make the asks, not provide the answers. If you have appointed a Facilitator-Enabler, as suggested, then you are no longer providing answers or results in any case. Your role is to ask the questions and review progress.
    • Digital and Social Media – a vital ingredient of all strategy. There is virtually nothing that social media and digital solutions cannot enable. You can reach limitless numbers of people without spending too much time and money, except of course on more IT and Comms staff in Diocesan HQ. Your strategy will not be complete without a short paragraph acknowledging the transformative power of digital and social media. Again, use broad strokes. Your role is to embrace this world, not explain how it might be effective.
    • Leadership – no strategy can succeed without it. Setting out the strategy is the ultimate expression of leadership. In the unlikely event that your strategy fails, point to the absence of leadership in laity and clergy. Remember that rather like strap-lines, it will repay you handsomely to use a self-contradicting phrase that encapsulates your leadership style. A favourite is ‘Servant-Leader’, as it is easy to pose for photos doing servant-like things (e.g., put your back into planting a commemorative tree, or hold tea towel for a few minutes the next time you are at a parish lunch). But obviously, you are still The Leader, and you have no accountability to your colleagues. They have no employment rights. And the laity and the clergy won’t be allowed to scrutinise or appraise you. The good thing about strategy in the Church of England is that it is not a democracy, and they can’t get rid of your governance and leadership if they don’t agree with it. In some respects, setting strategy, goals and vision in the Church is more like being the sole ruler of a one party state. Enjoy.

    How Can I Operationalise My Strategy?

    Hand the PowerPoint assignment to someone subordinate and ask them to make it happen. Don’t try to tell them how. That’s their job. You’re strategic. Invite someone who works for you to follow up much later with “detailed operational guidance”. Ask them to link it to your strategy, wherever possible.

    If the programme fails, it’s because people didn’t understand the strategy, lacked the management skill to operationalise it, chose not to buy into it, clung to vested interests or failed to read the guidance over the bank holiday. Often, it’s a combination of the above. Or the laity and clergy are to blame, as they failed to keep pace, or preferred to continue without your vision. Either way, it’s not your problem.

    How Will I Know if My Strategy is Working?

    The success of every strategy is judged by history. The wise strategist will put as much distance as possible between themselves and history to give their strategy a fighting chance.

    Never promise that your strategy will bear fruit while you’re in a position to be accountable. Make sure the planning horizons of your strategy (if any) are slightly longer than the life expectancy of your current role. Set your heart on a bigger, better diocese or cathedral in the future, and work backwards from that point. If you are only a Suffragan or Area Bishop, it is usually a good idea to volunteer to lead and implement the strategy. When it is not working, it is easier for the Diocesan Bishop to move you on, meaning they can start again from scratch with a new vision, and blame the fact that you were called to a new role on the implementation failure.

    Can You Ever Have Too Much Strategy?

    If you need to ask this, you should not be in the Talent Pipeline. Non-strategists concentrate on the failures of the past and try and avoid repeating mistakes. These people are egg-head analysts, and are not persuaded by vision.

    Strategy depends on endless repetition. Consider what state the Church of England would be in were it not for your endless reforms and transforming vision. The true strategist constantly builds on their own success, as defined by themselves. Remember, your role is to go forwards, not backwards, and not to get distracted by the direction of travel. The point of going forward is to keep moving. The destination is open-ended.

    Assessment:

    The course is assessed by your response in the boxes below. Please note, we do not accept essays, attachments, citations or any secondary analysis drawn from academic literature or case studies you may deem relevant.

    Write your proposed Strap-line [3 words, max].

     

     

    Set out your strategic goals, and the resources to achieve these ends [20 words, max.].

     

     

    Describe your distinctive leadership contribution and style as related to your vocation and formation as part of the whole Baptised People of God [10 words, max.].

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Foundations for Ecclesial Instability: the Rock on the Sands

    by Martyn Percy, a Fellow of King’s College London and Harris Manchester College, Oxford 

    What is the connection between an obscure piece of research commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the early 1990s and the current crisis in the Church of England? The research, mostly conducted by academics with particular involvement from the George Mason University Centre for Global Policy, grew out of earlier research conducted by Ted Gurr at the University of Maryland via the ‘State Failure Task Force’ under the Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM), later led by Monty Marshall. Gurr and Marshall identified the common ‘problem set’ of issues that were the grounds – shaky or quicksand – that gave rise to instability.  Today, this research finds its practical outcome in the PITF – the Political Instability Task Force.

    Instability is hardly a new problem for churches. Persecution, doctrinal disputes, scandals and heresies have all resulted in some shaking of the foundations.  Moreover, the New Testament itself, and the teachings of Jesus, are often consumed with questions of stability. Jesus’ parable of the houses built on rock or sand, or the more agricultural motifs centred on deep-rooted plants, fruitfulness and growth come to mind. In one sense, the entire basis of Christian faith rests on the paradox of forfeiting security and stability for a life of instability and uncertainty…in order to gain safekeeping. After all, what else is a vocation other than living out risk with no guarantees or assurances.

    That said, we do make these choices for God as individuals. But I may only say ‘yes’ to God as myself. I cannot commit another person to my ‘yes’, however much I hope and pray that they may share the same affirmation. But what happens when, instead of us choosing instability and learning to live with it, this interloper arrives uninvited, and is communal and countrywide? My personal negotiation with instability is one thing. Social and political instability, however, is of a different order. When the foundations of societies are shaking, how do we know if this is an episodic quake that will pass, or something more damaging that will reduce even the strongest foundations to rubble and dust?

    The PITF drew on over a hundred global instability ‘problem cases’ from 1955-2011. The researchers identified several categories of state failure:

    1. Revolutionary and Ethnic wars (emerging from civil strife).
    2. Genocides and Politicides (often rooted in perceived inequalities).
    3. Adverse Regime changes (arising from or leading to civil war).

    The PITF were interested in the common denominators and the cultural, social, climatic and political factors that gave rise to instability which tipped into revolt, revolution and/or violence. Why do regimes suddenly topple, and governments that were elected get swept away like political debris? Readers will have their own view as to whether there is sufficient civil strife in society at the moment to trigger some sort of revolution. I doubt it, though the risks are markedly higher than at the end of the 20th-century, and the current grammar of dissent and protest is perhaps comparable to what was witnessed in the 1960s.

    How might a ‘Polity Instability Task Force’ assess the wobbling churches of late modernity?  For sure, money, sex and power – that unholiest of trinities – afflicts all mainstream denominations. Consider the history, data and the internecine ecclesial wars, and try and name any exceptions. There are internal wranglings and unease over lack of money and its unequal distribution, the method of ‘taxing’ congregations, and how the revenues are spent; over same-sex relations, scandals on clergy and sexual abuse, divorce and remarriage, and gender; and balancing democracy, leadership, management and compliance.

    The original State Failure Task Force was alive to the social, political and cultural conditions that precipitated regime changes. In ecclesiology, the equations are no less complex, but they are slower to resolve. One might say that the major regime changes in ecclesiology are the East-West Schism and the Reformation. But in truth, smaller versions of these global ruptures occur in every generation, some resulting in permanent rifts and then further extended fragmentation.

    However, the cultural ground in which the foundations of mainline denominations sit is no longer stable. The emergence of meritocracy, less deference, mass mobilisation, greater individualism and consumerism in expressions and preferences all conspire to render this ground unstable and shifting. Mapped on to a global scale, sexuality, power and money quickly become enmeshed in North-South, First-World/Developing-World rivalries, with ethnicity and the legacy of empire and exploitation fuelling the complexity. Peter Turchin’s fine End Times (Allen Lane, 2023), explains how regimes rise and fall, and what it is about forms of control and the exercise of power that makes some types of governance especially susceptible to implosion or overthrow. Putin’s foray into Ukraine throws some light on how political disintegration gains traction when power is challenged, and elites lose their authority under the weight of their failures and ensuing disenchantment.

    It is Turchin who also coined the term cliodynamics – Clio being the muse of history in Greek mythology, and dynamics simply the study how and why change takes place over periods of time. Using mathematical models, a cliodynamic approach can predict expansion and retraction in economies, state collapse or implosion, social discontent and even civil wars. While not a perfect science, it can explain how and why institutions and societies disintegrate.

    So, what would cliodynamics and an ecclesial Polity Instability Task Force make of the Church of England at this moment? Several observations are apparent, and will create the conditions for instability:

    1. Major shifts away from more open electoral systems to ones that are more closed, authoritarian and managed systems of control produce boredom and detachment, festering resentment, and may result in speculative conspiracy theories (e.g., we know where all the money goes…).
    2. Elitism, whether it is quasi-monarchical or some ontologised managerialism, will result in a larger critical mass resenting the hierarchies and its powers of rule and decision-making. A lack of accountability, transparency, integrity and humility will also produce calls for regime-change.
    3. Loss or rapid erosion of devolved local powers, assertions of control (e.g., adopt the strategic vision) and penalties for daring to dissent will create a groundswell for secession, in which the exercise of despotic power will only produce tensions between central control mechanisms and those meant to comply.
    4. The collapse of the central governance, unable to manage external complexities and challenges, and unable to fund, manage and resource internal systems of order and control, will tend to question the capacity of the ruling elite to hold authority, power and any ability to govern.

    You might like to ponder how this all fits together with the Church of England and its leadership, and the grass roots. Here the Save the Parish movement is both a symptom and cause of widespread ecclesial dis-ease with the current regime. It has quickly won widespread support, largely due to growing fears over plutocratic-despotic episcopal leadership.

    A plutocracy is a society ruled and controlled by a handful of people who hold great wealth and income. The term combines Greek ploutos (wealth) and kratos (power).  Plutocracy is not a political philosophy so much as the name for a malaise, with the term first coined in English in the 1630s – times of Laudian and Stuart periods of governance, a decade before our own Civil War. The unaccountable and divine right to govern was the issue at stake, over and against the calls for proper democratic structures and political accountability.

    The term plutocracy is normally used critically and pejoratively to warn against an adverse and undesirable social context. Plutocracies are regimes distracted by their own fears and vanities, and quickly lose sight of social responsibility and the causes of poverty and inequality.

    Furthermore, whether left-wing or right-wing, plutocracies can ferment class division and conflict, and encourage individualistic wealth accumulation through competition for resources, replacing subsidised costs that were hitherto allocated on a needs-must basis into an economy of competitive bidding between those who are struggling. Plutocracies can go further, and insist that bids for essential subsidies and funding support now conform to the objectives, vision and goals of the regime and its elites.

    Now, nobody is suggesting for a moment that Bishops or Diocesan Secretaries have great personal wealth through their ecclesiastical preferment. The modern ecclesial plutocracy is more subtle. Diocesan HQ’s, Finance Committees, the Church Commissioners and the National Church Institutions have become the new quasi-baronial powers, whilst the ordinary person in the pew and the local parishes have seen their tax demands (i.e., parish share contributions) grow, whilst accountability and transparency over expenditure has declined.

    In short, demands by the centre for more money paired with less democratic accountability will eventually produce movements like Save the Parish. The elites demanding more and more while giving less and less are perceived to be bureaucratic plutocrats, spending money (not their own, but rather that of the people, laity and churches) on speculative projects and visions rather than supporting local clergy and ministry in parishes.

    The recent debacle over the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) has, for many churchgoers, and quite a number of onlookers, become an indicative sign of a leadership that is plutocratic, despotic and certainly elitist. Indeed, as a model of quasi-monarchical episcopacy, it has been high-handed and anti-democratic. Hiring and firing staff at will; asserting the independence of the ISB some days when it suits the regime to say so, yet on other days treating ISB staff as a subordinate body of subjects with few rights. It suggests a capricious use of power and authority.

    However, since the ISB ‘experiment’ cost Archbishops’ Council at least £500,000, Save the Parish would presumably like us all to know that this money could have been better spent. Or at least this expenditure could and should have been debated. Yet that could only have been achieved through greater democratic accountability, proper scrutiny and auditing, deliberation and examination.

    The Archbishops’ Council does not want that level of transparency. Whoever was in control of ‘Operation ISB’ no longer thought that independent oversight of safeguarding was in their interests or suited other objectives, so they shut it down. Charles I was against fiscal transparency and democratic scrutiny too, and the rest, as they say, was (tragic) history.

    Here we run into the opacity of those who control the money and the power, and are skilled in using the antediluvian structures which provide the reasoning for not being transparent and accountable (i.e., “it is too complex to explain…”; “we’ll need to think about that and then get back to you at our next meeting within the cycle…”; and “that probably needs to be looked at by a different committee…”). We’ve all been on the receiving end of such tropes. Some of us are also fluent in the language.

    The ecclesial scenario sketched above entirely corresponds to the findings of the PITF for the CIA in the 1990s. The Church of England, or rather its leadership, is on the brink. It has been whittling away at the democratic instruments such as General Synod for some time, turning what should be a proper auditorium for debate and deliberation into a theatrical spectacle more akin to party political bread and circus.

    Yet quite suddenly, serious and searching questions over the meaning and interpretation of the word ‘independent’ in safeguarding governance have now called into question the entire direction, structure and running of an ecclesial regime.  The stance of the two ISB board members was simple. They stood up for genuine independence, and advocated for victims of abuse – so they lost their jobs.

    Rather like the solitary ‘Tank Man of Tiananmen Square’ (June 5th 1989) they simply stood in the way of the prevailing power and would not be moved. Yes, they still lost – swept away by the force, assertion and power of a regime in control. But this time we have all been able to witness this action against them, and come to realise it was an action against us all. We have observed a brave act of defiance and the morally-principled and rightful exercise of disobedience. The regime expressed its regret, but has not apologised – indeed told us their actions were necessary and beneficial for our progress. But such assurances from the regime no longer carry weight or conviction; nor do they sound authentic.

    Like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, ecclesial communications and assertions no longer correspond to reality. Serious disenchantment has set in. Real questions are being asked. As with any regime, it finds itself on the brink when its citizens have to choose between unwavering loyalty and compliance – or the dangerous acts of dissent that might be involved in expressing a free mind that seeks better alternatives.

    At the moment, the regime remains in power, controlling the money, media and message. But something stronger than sullen resentment has been born out of this ongoing safeguarding omnishambles. Some now sense a change of mood and some real determination that there must be serious reform and wholesale revolution. True, it will take a lot to raise General Synod from its habitual torpor. And the agenda for the gathering and the set-piece speeches still evidence a politburo in full control of the party conference and the messaging to wider membership. Yet the ennui it breeds is undeniable.

    The Polity Instability Task Force are examining a growing corpus of evidence. There are some significant signs indicating winds of change. The Spirit blows where it wills.