How to Change Your Vicar (Part Two)

Clergy have all kinds of unusual talents. Vicars have managed to combine ministry with keeping bees, woodcarving, climbing the Himalayas, even inventing submarine detection equipment.

Some clergy have Really Useful collateral skills — playing the guitar, journalism, fundraising, stage magic for school assemblies.

Second Last Thing
My second piece of advice is for people who believe there may be a capability issue with their vicar. For this to go anywhere formally, it should normally relate to what incumbents are actually there to do. A hymn writing, guitar playing or beekeeping fail is bad news. But it’s unlikely to support capability proceedings.

What are parish clergy actually there to do? What fails really count? The answer lies in Canon C24 of the Church of England. Such is the variety of circumstances in which clergy work that these norms are indicative, taken in context, not exhaustive and literally applied. Bear in mind that nobody scores 100% in any or all areas, but these are their core functions.

1. Prayer
   Maintaining a pattern of prayer in the parish, traditionally understood as drawn from the Daily Office — the prayers of the whole Church provided for in Prayer Book and Common Worship.
2. Celebration of Holy Communion
   They should provide for the regular celebration of Holy Communion, especially on Sundays and Holy Days.
3. Preach
   Clergy should provide for regular preaching in the Churches for which they are responsible.
4. Teach
   Clergy should teach, both adults and children, being willing to visit schools when invited
5. Present candidates for Confirmation
   having prepared them for discipleship within the life of the Church.
6. Visit
   both the sick and housebound, and make themselves available for spiritual counsel and advice.
7. Consult with a Parochial Church Council
   about matters of general concern and importance to the parish. This should meet at least four times a year.
8. Arrange substitutes
   when unable to perform their basic duties themselves

You might react to this list in various ways — where are the targets? Where are Performance Indicators? You may indeed see praying, leading Sacraments, preaching and teaching as less than vital functions for the Church compared to other things. Yet these are still the primary activities clergy are there to enable in the Parish. Why no KPI’s? Well one reason is that clergy do have tremendous liberty to approach these tasks according to conscience and personal conviction. Imposing on the consciences of clergy is likely to induce more losses than gains. The breadth of the working space clergy have is not always ideally used. The besetting sin of clergy, however, is far more often overwork than laziness.

So, secondly...
If you are thinking of Capability, relate your concerns to what Vicars are actually there to do.

How to Change Your Vicar (Part One)

Not quite Jack Lemmon’s problem, but parish life feels like that sometimes. Just as in marriages, all of us need to remember we are all limited in various ways, and need each other to stay grounded and sane, but don’t always realise how much.

Lord Runcie, when Bishop of St Albans, once stopped in a village to congratulate the butcher, as one pig man to another, on a superb carcase hanging outside.

“You can have it,” quoth the latter, “if you get rid of our Vicar!”

About four or five times a year somebody comes to see me wondering if that is where they are with their vicar. I have got into the way of suggesting a list of Four Last Things to remember before consigning an apparently unsatsfactory vicar  to the Dustbin of History. Remembering these helps you achieve something worthwhile for everybody, and, I hope, prevents the Sermon on the Mount flying out the window early on.

First Last Thing
Everybody has rights and responsibilities equally, and needs to work out in their own mind what kind of a problem this really is. This is a very useful discipline because the sensible thing to do will depend directly on which of the following five options you believe best describes what is going on:

1. Is the vicar doing something seriously, measurably, wrong?
   I don’t mean everyday common or garden workaday faults of omission or commission, however annoying, but something serious that would in any other sphere of work get somebody sacked?
   If so, the Clergy Discipline Measure is the way to go. It is a major legal procedure because it can potentially deprive someone of the work and home, but sometimes it is the right tool.
2. Is the vicar not up to the job?
   If somebody tells you they are up to the job of being a parish priest, they are a fool or a liar. But is there some major and necessary area of work in which they continually fall short? To give na example, not being terribly good at chairing meetings is an occupational hazard fr many vicars. But not holding more than 4 PCC meetings a year, or failing to conduct an APCM, is a problem. By the same token some sermons are better than others, but failure to show up in Church or ever preach could be evidence of incapacity.
   If so, there are formal procedures that cover what HR people call “capability”, depending on the terms of your vicar's work (Common Tenure or Freehold). The first stage is to log the critical incidents involved fairly and accurately, bearing in mind that they could be required for tribunal proceedings.
3. Is this really all about relationships?
   It usually is. It is a truth generally acknowledged in every field of human endeavor, but especially in one in which sensitivities are raised as they are in religion, that not everybody can work fruitfully with everybody else. This is acutely uncomfortable, but as long as people are honest about it, there’s no shame in acknowledging the fact. By dint of personality some vicars are more able to making and sustaining relationships than others — many spiritually minded people are introverts, and it is not given to every vicar to be a Butlin’s Redcoat. Others are extraverts, and may seem brash and rude. Many vicars’ first reactions to having a fault pointed out is to blame theselves, whilst others “have many faults, but being wrong isn’t one of them.”
   If so, we maintain a network of conciliators trained by Bridgebuilders. They and others can offer their services. But beware. In mediation what you really want is usually what you end up stuck with. No mediator can magic a situation better unless people actually want to be reconciled.
4. What capacity does the whole system of the parish have to transact its business?
   Like families, parishes have different capacities to get along. This isn’t either surprising or insoluble. In fact the vast majority of the skills needed in this area are trainable. Are there repeating patterns in recent history? Is there a feeling of “something in the water?” To what extent is your vicar (or someone else) a lightning conductor for the feelings of others? Or not? the key diagnostic feature is bad communication, I find.
   If so, we have a Parish Development Adviser and other consultants who can observe and then help people be more aware of the snags and opportunities of life and work together and, even more importantly, help them to deliver on their good intentions.
5. Is the problem just one of those things?
   before I am buried under a hail of “you just don’t understand,” this does happen. It happens in medical diagnostics, it happens with the ministry of deliverance, it happens all over. It’s what happens when the computer helpline tells you to unplug the machine, count to five and plug it in again. People, vicars as well as lay volunteers can flourish in some positions and not in others and even, on occasion reinvent themselves. But to do so they need honest feedback, clear communication, and confidence in God, their calling and themselves. Backing them into a corner and beating them with rubber hoses may make some people feel better, but it rarely achieves anything in the greater scheme of things and sometimes rubs the ash into the carpet something wicked.
   If so, don’t make a drama out of a crisis. Many of our parishes survived the black death, so this is probably a passing cloud by comparison. Assess the strengths of everyone in the situation giving rise to concern, and see if you can think of a way they could bring out the best not the worst in each other. With some idea of that we will know how to deploy Psychotherapists, CBT counsellors, Team consultants, Work coaches, the whole gang.

So, First and Foremost...
Work out what kind of problem the evidence indicates this actually is!

Bullying of and by clergy: a way ahead?

Many thanks to people who have posted stories and comments on clergy bullying. This is no more than an open discussion, not a therapy point, but any posting of information and ideas helps break the culture of silence around the subject. I did promise to say what we were doing in our diocese.

Archdeacon Karen and Poli Shajko, our HR Lead, have been scoping a new policy and procedures in the light of the Dignity at Work national documentation, in collaboration with Anne Lee, an Oxford psychologist who specialises in this area. We are going to recruit two confidential non-hierarchical listeners in each archdeaconry, the Parish Development Advisor (who already works and is known by any clergy) plus one - a mixed gender team with access available from any to all. This includes congregational members who say clergy are bullying them, as well as clergy who say congregational members are bullies. We are working with an independent partnership to develop training both for awareness and implementation of a new dignity at work policy, with documents to go to Bishop's Council, then out. I'm not sure how and when this is published around deaneries, but that's got to happen well — a comms job.

It seems to me, along with some comments earlier this month, that everyone knows what bullying is, and when they feel bullied, but the description needs to be in terms of the behaviour that has to change. If we don't do that the onus stays in the wrong place, and things will never improve. The vast majority of claims I have drilled into dissolve into mutual recrimination. So I have to say that the perception of "bullying" boils down to a symptom of organisational malaise, the abuse of power.

We need procedures in place, as for whistleblowing, available to individuals; but this is not enough.

The key to progress is to have a public framework describing the proper use of power against which all behaviour can be measured.

Such a framework makes any anomaly look like an anomaly, rather than just a random incidence of "shit happens."

One final frontier remains, however. Church culture, deferential, hierarchical and often inclined to hypocrisy, breeds an alignment gap between aspiration and active accountability at the top. The Church is full of good intentions but some bishops, forgive me for saying but it's the truth, fear and loathe that kind of open accountability. Confronted recently with a proposed standard policy on appointments, out poured reasons why this was an impossible bureaucratic imposition to clip their wings. Ironically, much practice is consistent with what was proposed, and the law will probably carry my Lords kicking and screaming where they don't want to go.

Why does it have to be like this? Perhaps the Great Sacred Cow of diocesan exceptionalism belongs to good and decent people who think they are doing their best, so where could the problem be? "parked on the candidate, not them" is the answer. The problem is this: Candidates applying for jobs need to have confidence that their applications will be treated consistently and fairly, and that the rules of the game are being observed by everybody involved - or why should they waste their time offering their work and ministry in the first place? Without some public standard applicants will inevitably suspect stitch-ups all over the place without this elementary accountability — even where they aren't happening! So culture has to change at every level in the organisation, if our practice is to align with our values. The problem is not, of course unique to the Church, but this may be the next area in which us Don Quixotes need to grab Sancho and buckle up.

HR, me Hearties!

“If you’re a professional pirate, you don’t have to wear a suit.” I learnt that from Muppet Treasure Island. Now I’ve been reading Peter Leeson’s semi-serious exploration of early eighteenth century piracy as an economic phenomenon. Blackbeard and chums were the pioneers of participative meritocracy. It turns out they were usually less violent and more mutual than you’d think, strictly for economic reasons. They were certainly better paid than legit sailors. Treasure was equally divided, but with slightly higher shares for the really key people.

There were two particular notables

1. The Cap’n, of course. He managed the ship’s reputation, designed bloodthirsty flags to scare people into surrendering without a fight, made hard executive decsions about where to plunder, who to shoot and when, maimings and maroonings. The Cap’n got the parrot, but was also radically accountable. If the crew felt he wasn’t delivering, they marooned him. The elected Cap’n dealt with star Exec tactics within an (illegal) regulatory framework called articles of association, which everybody signed up to, laying down the ground rules.
   
   
2. Enforcing the articles was the job of the Quartermaster. He (and very occasionally She) dealt with the enforcement of the rules, resolved disputes between pirates so that they didn’t damage the ship, dealt with health and safety, repairs, crew welfare, discipline and supplies. S/he also handled transitional arrangements between Cap’ns if the boss went mad, got shot, or fell overboard. Cap’n and Quartermaster were entirely dependent on each other to perform at a high level, or everybody got hanged.
   

To stay alive both jobs related to each other and were not entirely mutually exclusive, but there had to be great respect between the office holders, and both had to work together on the basis of mutual respect and giftedness shared. It’s called collaborative ministry.

Now I notice that a lot of human enterprises need these two different kinds of functions performed well and mutually. I can even think of teams of clergy and churchwardens who divvy up the work like this very effectively. But what history does not record is the existence of a kind of Uber or Super Cap’n who could somehow perform both roles simultaneously and effectively.

Now as I read person specs in parish profiles for new vicars, I notice a tendency to try and bag everything in a one-shot genius. People brainstorm lovely things about the best vicar they ever met, and roll it all up into a Poly-Combo Super Amazing Ask. S/he will be better at boiling the Gumbo than the cook, super navigator, entrepreneurial, rational-bureaucratic, inspiring storyteller, incisive questioner, ship’s doctor, carpenter and purser. Why, S/he even has to fly better than the ship’s parrot, whilst simutaneously making fewer waves than the ship’s Cat — and all this on cabin boy’s wages.

Not surprisingly this kind of recruitment usually disappoints. How could it not, when it’s all based on fantasy? It would more effective for the crew to work out answers to few more basic questions — what kind of ship is this? what kind of crew? what are we willing to forego in our Cap’n?

OK. Here’s a particular snare. The last Cap’n was very inspiring, but not terribly good or enthusiastic about swabbing the decks. So the cry ascends for a new Cap’n who is absolutely as inspiring, drum roll, but also far more infrastructural. What we recruit is a new cap’n who is slightly more infrastructural, slightly less strategic. We think we’re all going to be happy but before long we’re disappointed because s/he is not enough of either. And s/he gets fed up too, because s/he feels s/he’s simply expected to be everything in an unfocussed way. Which of course s/he is. Result disappointment. Another perfectly good vicar is semi-successfully forced into an artificial mould that kills off their giftedness and enthusiasm. And the cult of mediocrity notches up another skull, and lumbers on in its highly effective quest to take over the entire C of E.

So, if recruiting, ask, who are we looking for here? How is our lousy job going to fulfil anyone who’s up to doing it? How realistic are we being? What are we willing to do without? How will they fit in with the gifts and skills of everyone else? If you want an inspirer who is gong to inspire them? And if you want a quartermaster, who is going resource them, and do the inspirational star stuff in a genuinely collaborative way?

Judging Clergy misconduct

An HR day out in London training for the implementation of Common Tenure, and an Ecclesiastical Law Society meeting at Lincoln’s Inn, which included a characteristically wise, just and humane presentation by Sir John Mummery, Lord Justice of Appeal, President of the Council of Inns of Court and Chair of Tribunals appointed under the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003. Sir John came to this work with considerable experience of appeals and disciplinary procedures in the legal profession having in the 1990’s headed various tribunals relating to employment appeals, the security services and investigatory powers.

CDM 2003 came into force in 2006, replacing a costly and obscure hotch-potch that had evolved down the years for complaints about the clergy in matters other than worship or doctrine. Some 22,000 people are subject to it. The 2009 report is due out soon, but in 2008 there were 69 formal complaints about their behaviour, 65% of them from ordinary members of the public rather than archdeacons or churchwardens. 3 were referred to tribunal, all of them resulting in a finding of guilt.

CDM is the only mechanism for dealing with clergy professional misconduct or abuse of trust and office, and anyone can access it by simply downloading the forms from the internet, complete with guidance notes (here). Transparency and fairness are paramount, though not everyone involved will always agree they have been served perfectly because, frankly, they aren’t aways. All legal procedures need to be subject to continuous vigilance and improvement to serve justice the way they are designed to. The system doesn’t deliver in and of itself. People operating the system try to.

CDM is emphatically NOT:

• for questions of doctrine or ceremony, which are provided for in other ways more appropriate to the complexity of the subject and the ancient liberties of the clergy
  
  
• a mechanism for grumpy people or bullies to attack clergy they don’t like. There are safeguards and rules of evidence for everyone built into it to prevent not only abuse of office by clergy but also abuse of the legal system by compainants. If the people soncerned agree to be reconciled the system encourages this, but if they require their day in court, this is where they get it. They have the right to decide.
  
  
• what HR people call a capabiity procedure — a way of getting individual clergy to raise their games. Among other places, capability’s being worked out in the new terms and conditions of service guidelines going to General Synod next month, not CDM.
  
  
• a mechanism for preventing pastoral breakdown. Indeed if there has been a breakdown of relationships going to court usually just winds things up and raises the stakes. Everyone can come out of it more cross than they went in. This is coercive and disciplinary, not a substitute for honest communication and relational gitches. Jesus taught the wisdom of dealing with relationahl matters directly and honestly, and being sparing about court proceedings.
  
  
• a way of preventing anyone (especially bishops) dong anything. There are good procedural reasons why in the early stages, if there is possibility of it being used, bishops need to protect complainants, complainees, and themselves by not weighing in and fouling the procedures up, but especially if no finding of guilt is made (as in the majority of cases) that emphatically does not mean there is nothing to be done — the so-called “Black Hole problem.” You can do all sorts of things with people apart from sacking them and depriving them of their homes, indeed in the vast majority of cases something else will probably turn out in the end to be the right thing to do.
  
  
• The question of parallel proceedings needs to be worked out carefully case by case, but CDM is not in any way a substitute for criminal or civil proceedings, or a gratuitous supplement to them in order to make them especially nasty for members of the clergy.
  

CDM Is a way of punshing serious misconduct, that is specific provable blameworthy behaviour that would lose your your job in any other line of work. Like all legal decisions, it is a matter of fact and degree. The system also aims to prevent repeat occurrences, and deter others.

Therefore actions for changing service times, parking in a disabled bay, sunbathing in your back garden (whence the complainant had to stand on tiptoe to see you), and “looking at someone in a funny way” (all of which have been atempted) are unlikely to succeed. Complaints about inappropriate relationships, improper management of Church funds, and anything damaging the welfare of a minor, if proved, are far more likely to result in findings.

Like any legal system it is and should be, as it seems to be, wide open to learning about its own shortcomings, constantly seeking to improve its capacity to deliver justice. The attitude is “Every day I learn something I didn’t know before and am often surprised I didn’t know before.” It’s prosection not persecution. It’s designed to help everyone as much as legal proceedings can help everyone (which is not always and everywhere possible). I was encouraged to find that it is served, with great humility and realism, by one of the finest and most experienced legal practitioners in the country. That’s good news for everyone.

Bullying, Bureaucracy, Vague Values?

Do we need a load of bureaucracy to tackle workplace injustice? At heart I am a swashbuckling Cavalier, who would like everything as easy as possible. Too much bureaucracy can actually foul up a process with excess semi-relevant information, and procedures that paralyse action. Ask any police officer. Maybe Bureaucracy is just a standard human activity, like politics, cooking, sex, or religion. If so, there’s good bureaucracy and bad bureaucracy. Small and effective beats big and cumbersone every time. At its best, like electricty in a home, you should be unaware of bureaucracy as a thing in itself. It should just be working away in the background. Ye shall know how good or bad it is by its fruits.

There’s something disturbing about playing off trust against audit trails. Up to the 1850’s you could be a doctor in England by self-definition. Today doctors have to go to medical school and pass exams. There’s far more than a bit of paper involved in the healing art, of course, but the paperwork actually increases, not reduces, my trust when I go to the surgery, as well as reminding my doctor of the story so far. Medical standardization mustn’t stifle creative research, or, even more importantly awareness of the patient as a person, but without some standardization we’d be back where we were in the 1850’s.

How vague are the positive values I suggested were the antidote to cultures of fear and intimidation — diversity, equality, respect? Call them anything you like, but

1. the logic of the Day of Pentecost implies the Church isn’t meant to be definitively homogenized around any particular culture, but incarnate in many cultures. It takes a whole world truly to know Christ.
   
   
2. Jesus had strong views on equality: “call no man Father, for you have one Father and you are brothers.” This was no incidental soundbite, but the cornerstone of a new philosophy of leadership that was not optional. Where the institutional Church has not been wholehearted or disciplined at implemeting that philosophy, it has suffered.
   
   
3. Respect, or the Golden Rule, is the centrepiece of the Sermon on the Mount. Niceness and good intentnions are no kind of substitute for justice. Ask the prophet Amos. His standard is the plumb line, and applying that standard doesn’t happen by accident.

Actually, I don’t see anything vague about these values at all. Life is full of practical opportunities to apply them. What’s truly vague is assuming “anything we do is bound to be OK because we are, after all, the Church, and we’ve been doing it for years...” A Church that is always being reformed has to be healthier than one that thinks it’s arrived.

I think the best way of defending the Church is for it to be authentically and recognizably walking in the way of Jesus Christ.

That means putting in serious, intentional work to focus on and apply these simple gospel values, in ways that can be measured. This involves rejecting deceit, self-deception, corruption and manipulation in our life together, in any practical way that presents itself. And a Church which is always being reformed will, by grace, come closer to being what it was called to be. It will be more missionally attractive than one that is content simply to coast on, with occasional kicking and screaming when it’s caught out.

Dignity at work: Systemics

A few things are becoming clear to me from the excellent discussions we have been having on clergy bullying (of and by):

1. The doctrine of original sin happens to be true, and reveals itself esoecially at work, like it does among drivers. Bad stuff goes on everywhere and at all times. I met a postie recently, who told me his Union took a less than laid-back Buddhist attitude to his refusal to join in a recent strike. One of the worst and most disturbing example of bullying I’ve encountered was of a member of the clergy by a journalist from a national newspaper. So we’re all in this thing together. There is none guiltless, no not one — why should we wish to be deceived?
   
   
2. Christianity is a social and personal means of redemption — a process of grace working through real people. Therefore this phenomenon does matter, and does, continuously, need to be addressed. Failing to engage with it denies dignity to the victim and the possibility of redemption to the perpetrator. G. K. Chesterton was right to say, in his quaint way, “we are sick and very sad who bring good news to all mankind,” but that can never be the last word. Jesus said “by this shall all know that you are my disciples, by the love you have... love one another as I have loved you.” That is the Gold Standard — not a discussion starter, but a way of life.
   
   
3. Whistleblowing and transparency are essential weapons against abuse. They can never, however be the whole answer, because making them so puts most, if not all, the responsibility on the victim, as though it was somehow their fault. This is morally wrong, because it leaves control (with diminished responsibility) in the hands of the institution, not the victim.
   
   
4. Therefore those who lead the institutional Church, fallen people that we are like everyone else, need to do serious intentional work to create a consistent culture of respect and justice within our own spheres of influence and authority. That defends the faith much more effectively than making snarky comments on atheist websites. Throughout the organisation, in every way, as far as lies in us, we have to express values that support human dignity. I have disussed this question carefully with some vastly able big hitters who have led particular UK public institutions through the transformation of their cultures of equality and diversity. This has convinced me that the only way we can transform ours is by producing and enforcing, in a publicly accountable way, routines that express these values. This will sometimes mean the organisation moving ahead of people. So be it. It’s only as this is done that decency becomes the shared norm in any organisation.
   
   
5. The basis for real Church life is not Instutionalism. It’s repentance and faith. As I read the NT I ask “what kind of attitude to relationships would you expect in a community which existed on this basis, and was trying to do it now as a way of life together?” the answer is mutual accountability — each to the other, all to each, each to all, corporately to God. This is the NT principle that is sometimes quaintly called “mutual submission.” We all have eccentricities. One of mine is that when I put a new priest in, and they make their declarations and oaths, I often express publicly my view that this ceremony marks me as being as accountable to them as they are promising to be to me. Ministry is fruitfully exercised with mutual accountability — anything less is a control game that leads easily to abuse.
   
   
6. Finally, please help me out. We are currently considering how to further the work of our Diocesan Committee for Racial Justice to advance Equality and Diversity best practice. The new Equalities Act will bring various strands together, and it’s important for our work to reflect reality and opportunity, and to be morally cogent and consistent with our values. This process of discernment makes me ask, “Prcatically speaking, what kind of a body, involving who, how, will best secure and advance in our diocese our accountability to values of equality, diversity and justice?” all answers, please, gratefully received...
   

Preventing Clergy Bullying (of and by)

Ruth Gledhill’s Times article on the Mark Sharpe case in Worcester has raised fresh allegations about bullying behavour in the Church. I know absolutely nothing except what’s in the papers about its particular details, which need to be worked out and made public by the tribunal. Bullying behaviour goes on, of course, in all working contexts, including the Church — in my experience less so in the Church than in other contexts in which I’ve worked, education and prisons, but any incidence is shameful and wrong.

As a jobbing bishop I've taken a particular interest in the problem, and blogged about it more than once over the past two years. It’s very good to have full and open public discussion. Some of the things that will be said may be offbeam, but many won’t, and the general effect is to raise awarenss of the possibllity of bullying. This, in itself is the best preventative against it.

Whether it’s laypeople bullying clergy or clergy bullying clergy or clergy bullying laypeople, any whiff of bullying needs to be explored and discussed, preferably with area dean or bishop's staff, or someone, fully and accurately as early as possible.

Whoever is allegedly bullying whom, the best response is early awareness. The most problematic cases (of which there is only a very tiny number) are usually situations that have stewed for ages. early investigation shows up anomalies for what they are, and protects everyone. If bullying is not happening, it can be excluded, and if it is, it can be exposed for what it is. Like domestic violence, the key thing is to break the cycle producing it as soon as possible.

The involvement of Rachael Maskell’s union, Unite, has always, in my limited experience of it, been extremely helpful. A good union rep can normalise the whole situation by setting the various anecdotes around it in a broader context, whilst ensuring that their member is well protected. Even more than unions, one organisation has worked long and hard to help in practical as well as awareness-raising ways — the Society of Martha and Mary. Their report Affirmation and Accountability has, since 2002, defined the gold standard to which I have aimed to work on clergy HR. Rachael is absolutely right about the key role of law in protecting laypeople and clergy — sometimes people speak of ecclesiastical law as an anomalous by-product of establishment designed to annoy free spirits. It is actually their baseline protection, and everyone else’s — a key part of the infrastructure.

The successful extension of section 23 rights to all C of E clergy by Common Tenure, a legislative job that began almost 10 years ago and goes live at the beginning of 2011, is absolutely necessary. I have a particular interest, formally, in the implementation group for this change in this diocese, and we all have a part to play. Stories like this demonstrate to any who might have wondered about it, why this piece of work, which has been going on over almost 10 years, is so important to complete effectively. I strongly recommend all clergy to take up the option of common tenure when they’re offered it later this year. Even if they don’t think they need it, the universal takeup of the protection it offers is good for the culture of the whole Church.

When Common Tenure is implemented, this time next year, more legislation could be desirable. I don't think anyone will actually know until the new system has been operating for long enough to assess its impact. In the meanwhile, unions (who have had a battering themselves in the past thirty years) need to work hard to recruit in all sectors, and I support them in doing this.

I’ve worked on this problem with colleagues for years, both as a regular part of my job, and particularly learning about it with Anne Lee, a psychologist from Oxford University. Two particular issues strike me about addressing Bullying:

1. Definitions:
   The term “bullying” itself always needs careful definition according to the context. It's not a simple phenomenon, but there is a big difference between situations where one person perceives it to be going on, and the sort of situation where everybody is alleging it of everyone else.
2. Human nature:
   There is a tremendous variety of person in the Church (as everywhere else): everything from people with personality disorders to serial litigants, with the vast, vast majority well near the centre of the normal scale. Everyone, however, has their own personal needs, personal formation issues, and vulnerabilities. The doctrine of universal original sin is actually a sober fact of life which shows itself particularly in this area — that’s not a reason to ignore it, but to engage with it! A luta continua!
   

This subject does matter. In general, most of the time, the Church is a healing place, but this should be worked for not assumed. It is not always the case, and the best way to make it more so is constant vigilance and public awareness. The Church is a very open organisation — as it should be. Anglicans talk publicly about anything — and this helps with the problem. But the work goes on continuously!

Kicking ’em when they’re down

Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury back in the glory days of 1937, is reported to have had strange views on bullying. His chaplain told him that Lang’s response to the Abdication made many people feel he had kicked a man when he was down. “But what’s the point of kicking a man,” mused his Grace, “if they’re not down?”

Apparently such attitudes are still alive and kicking in the UK workplace. The Equality and Human Rights Commission reports research that indicates some frankly disgusting home truths. Here is a list of workplace behaviours, reported by people with disabilities/ long term illness, and people without. See if you can make it through, without feeling sick. Proportions with a disability/ long-term illness are given in bold, set against a control group without, in italics. The asterisk indicates statistical significance:

1 - Someone withholding information which affects your performance: 18.9% (15.6%)
2 - Pressure from someone else to do work below your level of competence 19.3%* (13.5%)
3 - Having your opinions and views ignored 36.6%* (29.8%)
4 - Someone continually checking up on you or your work when it is not necessary 25.0%* (19.4%)
5 - Pressure from someone else not to claim something which by right you are entitled to 15.8%* (9.8%)
6 - Being given an unmanageable workload or impossible deadlines 41.1%* (31.1%)
7 - Your employer not following proper procedures 35.2%* (22.4%)
8 - Being treated unfairly compared to others in your workplace 21.5%* (16.7%)
9 - Being humiliated or ridiculed in connection with your work 13.4%* (8.7%)
10 - Gossip and rumours being spread about you or having allegations made against you 21.8%* (12.1%)
11 - Being insulted or having offensive remarks made about you 27.4%* (16.2%)
12 - Being treated in a disrespectful or rude way 34.7%* (24.8%)
13 - People excluding you from their group 14.1%* (8.7%)
14 - Hints or signals from others that you should quit your job 14.4%* (8.1%)
15 - Persistent criticism of your work or performance which is unfair 22.5%* (13.4%)
16 - Teasing, mocking, sarcasm or jokes which go too far 18.7%* (13.2%)
17 - Being shouted at or someone losing their temper with you 37.3%* (25.9%)
18 - Intimidating behaviour from people at work 25.4%* (15.2%)
19 - Feeling threatened in any way while at work 19.4%* (12.3%)
20 - Actual physical violence at work 11.6%* (5.5%)
21 - Injury in some way as a result of violence or aggression at work 8.8%* (4.7%)

So your chances of being beaten up are actually 3% higher if you are in a wheelchair. What??! And if you aren’t in a chair, but suffer from a learning difficulty, psychological or emotional condition, the likelihood of these negative experiences at work increases by a sickening 167 %. What, indeed??!

Additional factors that raise the chances of experiencing such behaviour include:

• Sexual orientation - being gay increased negative behaviour by 55 per cent
• Public sector - working in the public sector increased negative behaviour by 57 per cent

I cannot begin to account for these shameful figures, which strike me as way out of kilter with the kind of people we would all, surely, want to believe ourselves to be. One thing is obvious, however. This is a problem for all of us, even though the objects of bullying are picked off one by one on any given occasion. Formal workplace procedures need to be backed by positive understanding and partnership. The Churches should be in the lead, but, sadly, whatever we profess, third sector workers raise their chances of being bullied by 118%.

When and how do we think things are going to change, and how proactive are we willing to be to change them?

h/t Ann Memmott — thanks for drawing this report to my attention

Clergy stress and wellbeing at work

The slow days after Christmas are a good time to check back on the basics. After interesting posts and discussions here this year on Clergy bullying and wellbeing at work, I’ve revisited my standard list of stresses bearing on the health of clergy in multiparish benefices that I drew up a few years ago. An Occupational Health Physician asked for a copy of the person’s job description, to help her assess the health impact of the job. None. The parish profile? All it said was that they wanted a perfect vicar — telling, but insufficiently detailed information. This list was an attempt to summarize where the stresses came from, so as to enable a concerned professional to understand and help.

One of my ambitions for 2009 is to find better ways to care better for appointments and colleagues in work. If others know of other similar lists, I’d love to see them. Revisiting my summary, it seems to me to stand up fairly well to the experience I think colleagues are having — but does it? I’d love to know what I’ve missed, or mis-stated.

Factors bearing on the occupational health of incumbents in multi-parish benefices — a generic handlist

Many general facets of being a Vicar in the country are pluses when things are going well relationally, but significant sources of stress when they are not. For example, being housed free of rates rent and maintenance in a four bedroom family house would generally be thought to be a benefit worth several thousands of pounds a year, but the requirement to live in the parsonage house can become a source of significant stress, inducing a feeling of being trapped, if things break down relationally.

This job always requires a higher degree of capacity to manage a work/life balance than would be the case in an occupation which did not require as much working from home.

Particular dimensions and requirements of the job which bear on health include:

1. Interaction with volunteers and the public —
   dealing professionally with strangers, which requires significant discernment and versatility. For example, The partner of a person who greatly dislikes you may die, and then you have to conduct the funeral cheerfully and competently. Relating to people of all ages, positively and fairly, is easier if clean and effective communication has been established with a variety of people and organizations including key volunteers such as churchwardens and treasurers. Many members of the public have real difficulty knowing how to respond to anger in clergy.
2. Leading public worship —
   including family celebrations and funerals and teaching the Christian faith, by word and example, in a way which is sincere and competent, personally grounded, but outwardly focused.
3. Administration —
   Time and workload management in a basically unsupervised environment, including appropriate record keeping, calls for competent self-management. Work/Life balance needs diligent monitoring and management, and the careful holding of working and relational boundaries in a sustainable way that inspires confidence in others. Hours are mainly flexible and undirected. Clergy aren’t required to, but many of them work longer hours than they should and skimp on holidays.
4. On-call and occasional emergency availability —
   handling personal and family crises (sometimes acute) with an awareness of the needs of others and ability to manage sensitive and confidential materials professionally.
5. Acting as a professional representative of the Church —
   with all the complex and personal transference people may have about religion. This means relating to people with differing views, some of which conflict with your own, openly and positively. Sustaining appropriate behaviour in role requires self-discipline, clear thinking, and careful boundary keeping, especially where roles potentially conflict. The job can involve juggling the roles of a parent in the school/ school governor/ chaplain to the school/ Village vicar — all at the same time.
6. Leading volunteer teams in a voluntary organisation —
   sometimes (especially in a rural multiparish benefice), teams have conflicting and unclear traditions and aims. Local feelings and rivalries can run deep. Your job is to try and provide a focus for unity in the community. Word goes around villages. People are very interested in their vicars — this unlocks high levels of interest and personal support on occasion, especially when the relational infrastructure is there to support the person in their ministry, but can be experienced as oppressive.

Being a rural multiparish incumbent has many dimensions, and that is one of the satisfactions people derive from doing the job. Although no clergy person is perfect, they need to find an approach to their work and the people they serve that is good enough to sustain their sense of personal and professional wellbeing. If this is compromised, the whole structure of deference that used to surround clergy is no longer there, and they can easily find themselves in a lonely, frightening and even dangerous working environment. The occupation requires a high degree of personal self-knowledge, resilience and versatility, or it can turn into a nightmare.

Bullying: diagnostics (provisional)

Putting a finger on the problem. Since our discussion earlier this year about clergy bullying (sometimes of, sometimes by), I have been trying to work out how I, as a bishop, can respond operationally. What are I and my colleagues supposed to seek? What defines what’s going on? As a working toolbox, about which I would love further correction and enlightenment, examine four I’s?

1. Information. Most methods for protecting vulnerable people involve secure protocols about communicating information out of the war zone into places it can be processed and acted upon, like Childline. Entirely protected anonymous squawk procedures are necessary but wide open to abuse. The only way to protect against abuse of the reporting system is to make the open protected communication easily available, but have rigorous protocols about weighing information. Assume nothing; believe everything initially, but test it carefully. Check the infromation on which you act is evidence and possible (ultimately) to put in a form which natural justice requires vis-a-vis everyone involved, including (eventually) the alleged perpetrator. The more reporters take responsibility for their feelings, the further we are from the danger that all we are getting is one half of a scenario within which both sides are actually exhibiting traits of bullying behaviour towards each other.
   
   
2. Insecurity. What goes on in bullies? Why do they do it? Fear and personal insecurity have to be in there somewhere, surely. These will probably be evidenced in other areas of life that have nothing to do with the victim, as well as in the bullying behaviour — “probably” not “necessarily,” as the temporary relief provided by victimizing a vulnerable person may act as a lightning conductor and diminish symptoms of fear and insecurity elsewhere.
   
   
3. Insincerity. One personal trait that will pretty much always express itself in bullying behaviour is a (technically) psychopathic personality. The technical term “psychopathic personality” is unhelpful because of its loaded popular associations. All I mean (from prison experience) is a person who would score high on a Hare PCL-R test. Signs include a strong selection of these traits:
   
   a. People who may have many faults, but ever being wrong ain’t one of them: superficial, sometimes grandiose
   
   b. ...with an immense capacity to charm but also to manipulate — deceitful; economical with the truth
   
   c. ...where everything that happens to them is all about them, because they have a weak capacity to empathise with or even accept others are autonomous individuals, let alone feel accountability towards them
   
   d. ...where everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault, ammo for blame, and everything that goes right is focussed on themselves and used to vindicate themselves in the face of a hostile or uncomprehending world; prone to blame the ref for the goals they let in,
   
   e. ... with a tendency to “them and us” thinking, to demonise perceived opponents and glamorize perceived allies, arising from a low-accountability world view in which I can only ever win if you lose
   
   f. ... bigger about threats and boasting than results and delivery
   
   g. ...with a preference for passive aggression and revenge as a dish taken cold. Watch out for grudges.
   
   I would expect some if not all of these traits to be evidenced in a true bully, pretty much every time.
   
   
4. Intentions. There are two sides to victimizing — victimizing others and victimizing oneself. We can’t play the one off against the other, and everybody remains responsible for their intentnions and actions, but anyone assessing what is going on has to make the distinction in their own mind.