Residentiary canons have objected strongly to proposals about their position, status, and accountability, prompting the Cathedral Working Group to reiterate its view that it is \u201cessential\u201d that deans have oversight of their work.<\/p>\n
The final report of the group, published this week, also contains a warning from the Church Commissioners that they cannot bail out\u00a0cathedrals<\/a>\u00a0that find themselves in debt.<\/p>\n The working group was set up last year by the Archbishops\u2019 Council after the episcopal Visitation of Peterborough Cathedral, where a cash-flow crisis led to the involvement of the Church Commissioners, forcing out the Dean and making several staff redundant (News, 13 April 2017<\/a>).<\/p>\n Its draft report, published in January, celebrated cathedrals as \u201can attractive brand, often understood better by the wider community than by the Church\u201d, but warned that \u201cserious governance mistakes\u201d had been made, and concluded that legislative change was needed to correct \u201cinadequacies\u201d in their regulation (News, 19 January<\/a>).<\/p>\n The relationship between deans and residentiary canons came under scrutiny: the group expressed concern that the latter could \u201cfunction with a degree of unhelpful independence from either the collegial vision of the Chapter or the line management of the dean\u201d. One of the findings at the Visitation at Exeter Cathedral was \u201cpoor communication and divisions among and between the Dean and Residentiary Canons\u201d (News, 23 September 2016<\/a>).<\/p>\n