Winchester Diocese welcomes the publication of the PCR2 (Past Cases Review 2). Its aim was to identify both good practice and institutional failings in the Church of England in how allegations of abuse have been handled in the past, and provide recommendations for improvements to help create a safer church environment for everyone. In addition, a key aspect of the process was to make sure that the voices of survivors and victims were properly heard.
Nationally, a review of the 75,253 files was conducted by independent reviewers between July 2019 and April 2022, and 65 survivors and victims were involved. The independent reviewers identified 383 new safeguarding cases relating to children and vulnerable adults (cases which needed to be referred to Police or Statutory services as they had not done so before), though none of these were in Winchester Diocese.
Winchester Diocese fully participated in this comprehensive review process. In addition to staff files, all safeguarding files were reviewed (a total of 1582) of which 112 were within the remit of the review in that they concerned church officers (clergy and church volunteers).
No immediate safeguarding action was found to be required during our local PCR 2 review, but some recommendations were made by the independent reviewer in the following areas: 1) improvement needed in chronologies kept on file, commenced from receipt of the original information/complaint; and 2) improvement in the record of policy decisions through creating a Policy File.
The Rt Reverend Debbie Sellin, the Acting Bishop of Winchester said,
“I would like to thank all those who have put together both the national PCR2 report and our local Winchester Diocese report, for all the rigorous work that has gone into this thorough process of trying to learn from the failures of the past. The recommendations made to our Diocese are valuable and, together with our excellent Safeguarding team, we are committed to making further improvements so that our processes are robust. But most of all I pay tribute and sincerely thank the survivors and victims of abuse that have so bravely contributed to these reports – it is their voices that have helped us understand the true cost of failings in this area and we are grateful for their courage in telling us their stories.”
If you have any Safeguarding concerns, please contact our team: https://winchester.anglican.org/safeguarding/
The national report can be found here: https://www.churchofengland.org/safeguarding/past-cases-review-2
