The Church of England has suffered in the last few months as a result of the revelations made in the Makin Review which resulted in the announcement of the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury in November 2024, and for which other senior clergy may yet face disciplinary action. Much has been made of this in the media (for example, see piece this week on the BBC news here), but few commentators have offered a helpful way forward. So an article appearing in Wednesday’s Church Times was a very good next step.
Written by former chairman of the Anglo-Catholic charity, Forward in Faith, Paul Thomas, it reflected on the fact that some of our governmance processes seem weak and ineffectual. In particular he talked about church charities which had, over time, “evolved practices and behaviour that focused too much on personalities and personal loyalties, and too little on the needs and mission of the Church.”
There is no doubt that poor systems and abusive behaviour exist within the church as they do outside, however much we would wish that that was not the case, and despite the fact that our safeguarding processes have enabled us to create a much safer environment than previously existed. But the fix needs to come from the top with better leadership and better governance.
Paul Thomas’s article pointed to the qualities required for effective leadership of a charity or voluntary organisation within the church and the values of those called upon to be leaders. And here he referenced the ‘Nolan Principles’, established by the UK’s Committee on Standards in Public Life in 1994, under the chairmanship of Lord Nolan.
“It struck me that one way to begin reforming this cultural problem was for our charities to make a public commitment to adopting and applying the Seven Principles of Public Life, known as the Nolan Principles — selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership — in all aspects of their operations.”
He went on: “I now openly invite those charities to respond to that call: to state publicly that they have adopted the Nolan Principles, and that, from now onwards, they will use them in the conduct of their business and as a yardstick by which they review their governance at regular intervals…..Such a step does not change a culture overnight — culture-change is only advanced by degrees — but it does demonstrate clear intent to reform”.
Sometimes in the church we are a little reluctant to adopt an approach from the secular world, preferring to create our own. But in this particular case, these are principles that would stand us in good stead as a voluntary and religious organisation – be it in church governance at national or diocesan level, or indeed as locally as parish or chaplaincy – and are not only entirely consistent with, but interpretive of, our faith and traditions.
Read more about the Nolan Principles here. Read the article from Wednesday’s Church Times here.
By chance, in the same week, the news headline appeared that a Job Ad had been published for the post of Archbishop of Canterbury! What in fact happened was that the Diocese of Canterbury published a “statement of Need” for their new Diocesan Bishop (and our Archbishop). It’s quite good. Interested? You can read it here.