A SIXTH serious-incident report has been sent to the Charity Commission relating to Bangor Cathedral, a statement on the Church in Wales website said on Tuesday.
The “supplementary statement” published on Tuesday follows publication of summaries of the Visitation and safeguarding audit at the cathedral, last Saturday (News, 9 May). It says that the Chapter met on Monday and discussed “financial record keeping and procedures. As a result of this discussion, it decided that a serious incident report should be sent to the Charity Commission.”
It then relates that this follows five serious-incident reports concerning Bangor Cathedral sent to the Charity Commission last year. Four of these related to safeguarding; three of which have been closed, the statement says. The remaining safeguarding report remained open as the commissioning and undertaking of the Visitation and safeguarding audit was one of the necessary responses. The fifth report “related to a financial matter and was closed in March this year”.
A spokesperson for Bangor Cathedral said: “The Cathedral Chapter take their responsibilities for good governance very seriously and have decided that, given information which has come to their attention, the Charity Commission should be sent a serious incident report. While we cannot provide ongoing commentary on the individual case, we will be working with the Charity Commission to ensure that the issue is resolved as quickly as possible and that any improvements which need to be made in our procedures are put into place without delay.”
The Charity Commission defines a serious incident as “an adverse event, whether actual or alleged, which results in or risks significant harm to your charity’s beneficiaries, staff, volunteers or others who come into contact with your charity through its work; loss of your charity’s money or assets; damage to your charity’s property; harm to your charity’s work or reputation.”
Last week, the Archbishop of Wales, the Most Revd Andrew John, said that the reviewers tasked with carrying out the Visitation and audit had heard concerns about “weak financial controls, unclear reporting lines, and spending decisions that were insufficiently scrutinised”.
He announced the creation of both an implementation group tasked with ensuring the implementation of the recommendations in both reports, and of an Oversight Board.
On Tuesday, a document outlining the Board’s scope was published. The Board would be “a place of accountability, oversight and support for the Bangor Cathedral Chapter and, when appointed, the Dean of Bangor, as a healthy spiritual and operational culture is rebuilt.” It was “empowered to ask probing questions, to drill down into detail and to have zero tolerance of bad behaviour, obfuscation and lack of candour.”
Its work would be complete only when several conditions have been met. The Board must be “content that the Chapter has become a functional, properly trained trustee body which operates with appropriate boundaries around confidentiality, embraces its fiduciary duties, and can demonstrate good governance.”
On Tuesday, the Church Times saw an email sent in January from the Charity Commission’s whistleblowing team to a representative of the whistleblowing group in Bangor that had raised concerns about the Bangor diocesan trust, Bangor diocesan board of finance, and the Dean and Chapter of Bangor Cathedral.
The email states that the Commission plans to write to the trustees with advice “on how to improve the way they run the charities”, covering “governance and reference trustee responsibilities and decision making, along with a reference to guidance on serious incident reporting”. The original whistleblowing complaint from the Bangor group sets out a number of concerns about the management of the diocese between 2016 and 2024.
