The Diocese of Westminster has responded to allegations that it imposed gagging orders on staff and parents at the Westminster Cathedral Choir School following a controversial change to boarding arrangements for choristers.
This week The Daily Telegraph revealed that at least six current and former and staff at the school have signed Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and received payoffs and settlements that prevent them from speaking out. At least three of the NDAs are believed to be directly linked to the decision to transition the school to weekday boarding or were implemented shortly after.
Opponents of the change say that the move disadvantages families of potential choristers who live outside London, for whom a weekly commute would be impossible. One parent quoted by The Telegraph, Derek Siemens, from Newport in Wales, said his three chorister sons were forced to leave the school because they could not afford the journey.
In response the Diocese said that the school has struggled to recruit choristers to full boarding in recent years, and that since the timetable was changed requests for voice trials has gone up. “Seven new probationer choristers joined in September 2019: the highest number for at least twelve years,” the Archdiocese said in a statement, adding that the percentage of chorister families living an hour or more from the school has been falling almost constantly for over a decade. By 2018/2019 – before the changes were announced – only 21 per cent, or four families, lived an hour more from the school.
Responding to concerns that the change to the timetable indicated a longer term plan to end the choir, the Archdiocese said: “There is not, and never has been, any plan to close boarding at the School, or convert the dormitories into classrooms. No financial model has ever required this, nor could it, given the School’s principal and historic raison d’être: namely, to support a world-class choir for the Cathedral. The School does not need to move away from boarding to meet its financial commitments.”