Bishops’ powers will be passed to trained “diocesan safeguarding officers”, who will be able to make decisions “independently of clergy” and will be supervised centrally.
The church said that bishops still have an “important role to play” in promoting the importance of child protection policies, but added that they “should not hold operational responsibility” for decisions about abuse cases.
The church also gave its backing to the creation of an independent body to oversee the work of its national safeguarding team, which will be the first time that an external watchdog has been set up to police abusive priests.
It will consist of a board with a “majority of entirely independent members” to provide “independent scrutiny and feedback”.
Independent watchdog to police abusive priests | News | The Times https://t.co/8S7j9PM7Gq
— Alan Collins (@abuse_justice) March 30, 2021