{"id":143822,"date":"2026-03-09T17:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143822"},"modified":"2026-03-09T18:54:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T22:54:51","slug":"church-times-weak-financial-controls-and-disempowered-trustees-were-background-to-bangor-debacle-review-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143822","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Weak financial controls and \u2018disempowered\u2019 trustees were background to Bangor d\u00e9b\u00e2cle, review says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u00a0Financial controls were dismantled, and trustees were \u201cdisempowered\u201d, in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/church-in-wales\">Bangor diocese<\/a>, a review of the situation over the five years before the previous Archbishop\u2019s resignation has found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The independent governance review of Bangor Diocesan Board of Finance (BDBF) and Bangor Diocesan Trust (BDT), published on Friday, was told by trustees that it had became apparent that \u201cthey should not challenge what was being done because it was already agreed, and dissent would not be appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the period studied \u2014 the five years leading up to the retirement as Bishop of Bangor and Archbishop of Wales of the Most Revd Andy John, in 2025 \u2014 several serious-incident reports were sent to the Charity Commission relating to Bangor Cathedral (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2025\/16-may\/news\/uk\/six-serious-incident-reports-on-bangor-cathedral-church-in-wales-confirms\">News, 14 May 2025<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Visitation and safeguarding audit heard about \u201cweak financial controls\u201d and was told that there was \u201cno protection for those raising concerns\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2025\/9-may\/news\/uk\/visitation-identifies-weak-financial-controls-and-inappropriate-behaviours-at-bangor-cathedral\">News, 3 May 2025<\/a>). Archbishop John announced his retirement in the wake of its publication, apologising for \u201cerrors of judgement\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2025\/27-june\/news\/uk\/archbishop-of-wales-apologises-for-error-of-judgement-over-bangor-bangor-cathedral\">News, 27 June 2025<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2026\/13-march\/news\/uk\/weak-financial-controls-and-disempowered-trustees-were-background-to-bangor-d%C3%A9b%C3%A2cle-review-says\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Financial controls were dismantled, and trustees were \u201cdisempowered\u201d, in <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Bangor?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Bangor<\/a> diocese, a review of the situation over the five years before the previous Archbishop\u2019s resignation has found<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/churchinwales?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#churchinwales<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/churchnews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#churchnews<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/churchtimes?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#churchtimes<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BrgXlgwQC6\">https:\/\/t.co\/BrgXlgwQC6<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Church Times (@ChurchTimes) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChurchTimes\/status\/2031057606903472453?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 9, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Financial controls were dismantled, and trustees were \u201cdisempowered\u201d, in\u00a0Bangor diocese, a review of the situation over the five years before the previous Archbishop\u2019s resignation has found. The independent governance review of Bangor Diocesan Board of Finance (BDBF) and Bangor Diocesan<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143822\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[405,168,437,435,184],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-of-wales","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-ministry-of-the-laity","category-ministry-of-the-ordained","category-parish-ministry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143822"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143826,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143822\/revisions\/143826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}