Cafod denies volunteers plan

The aid agency Cafod denied having plans to sack paid staff and replace them with volunteers as part of a programme to restructure the Catholic aid charity, writes Joanna Moorhead.

In a letter to The Tablet this week, chairman of Cafod’s trustees and Bishop of Salford, John Arnold, wrote: “We do not intend to replace paid staff with volunteers.”

The bishop was writing in response to a letter last week to the charity’s trustees from 200 supporters of Cafod urging a rethink of the restructuring proposals, following concerns about plans to cut jobs in Cafod’s 21 diocesan offices. But Bishop Arnold this week wrote that the proposed plans still commit ­“significant staff resources” to ­dioceses.

Last week’s letter, written by Cafod’s former head of education Brian Davies and its former national committee member John Mulholland, said the proposals might lead to a withdrawal of support from Catholics.