Church accused over failing to adopt safeguarding measures

FIFTEEN months after the publication of the McLellan Commission report into safeguarding procedures in the Catholic Church in Scotland, the commission’s chairman and others have written to the Church complaining that recommendations about the care of victims and about transparency are not being implemented.

The Very Revd Dr Andrew McLellan and six other signatories, including Kathleen Marshall, former commissioner for Children and Young People in Scotland, have complained that abuse survivors are not being supported, a key recommendation of the report, and that independent scrutiny of safeguarding practices has not been enacted.

Dr McLellan’s letter said that the Church’s dilatory response to the commission’s urgent recommendations put it in danger of “confirming the worst fears of survivors and observers by appearing to ignore” key findings. The McLellan Report had urged a need “to put survivors first – first in the priority of their needs and first in helping to shape policy”, the letter said, but “as far as we can tell from contacts with survivors that has not happened”.

Dr McLellan has previously drawn attention to the absence of detail on the Church website’s safeguarding page. “Not only do the Scottish public know nothing of the action taken in response to the report, as far as we can tell from Catholic friends, the members of the Church themselves know nothing,” the letter said.

The assistant general secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, Fr Tom Boyle, has said in response that the Church had allowed Dr McLellan two years without interference to write his report and that it was hoped that the same “ecumenical trust” and “generosity of spirit” that allowed a former minister of the Church of Scotland to report on Catholic practices would prevail. He added  that the Catholic Church in Scotland would be given a commensurate length of time to implement his recommendations.

Fr Boyle made it clear that the Church had promptly published an implementation plan in response to the Commission’s requirements and that this was being enacted.

He quoted one survivor as saying that he felt “more at peace now than for a long time”.

Dr McLellan and his commission colleagues had insisted that abuse victims should be in the foreground of any future practice and that all safeguarding procedures should be subject to independent scrutiny.

The Scottish bishops replied that an independent review group was being established and was now chaired, and that the publication of detailed annual audits was a unique token of openness.

Dr McLellan had told the Church that commission records had been destroyed, so it was not possible to identify the victims of abuse who had given testimony or determine whether they were currently receiving support.