As someone who has spent a fair (an unfair?) amount of time listening to, reading and sometimes even using management jargon (jargon meaning "special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand", per the OED), I think there is further nuance in the statement.
"[N]o ongoing safeguarding concerns" means that no one vulnerable is currently at risk. If (!) you're a bit of a cynic like me, the 'currently', or 'ongoing' in the original, suggests that there was at least one previous occasion that should have raised safeguarding concerns, i.e. someone vulnerable was put at risk.
The second clause is ugly (why is someone engaging with an outcome?) but clearly implies that there was behaviour by the (then) Bishop that should have been different. The "fully engaged" means that the (then) Bishop has agreed to whatever was suggested as an intervention to change his behaviour. Given that the previous behaviour is implied to have put someone vulnerable at risk, you would hope this was a more robust intervention or set of interventions than doing some e-learning, but who knows?
I don't think the intention was necessarily to obscure or be vague - the meaning is quite clear to people who grok the jargon. I think rather it was an attempt to put the issue to bed (as it were) in a way that didn't create any hostages to fortune, particularly any potential legal issues. And, of course, the potential legal issues could be with respect to the person or persons who were deemed to be at risk, or indeed, with respect to the duties of the (then) Bishop's employers.
The jargon problem is a serious one. One of my children's schools recently asked me, in a survey about a parents' evening, "Let us know what went well or even better if ?". Makes perfect sense to someone who works in education and knows the jargon. Tough to understand if you don't.
It was explained to me that an "even better if?" is something that would have improved the outcome. So in plainer English, the question would have been "What went well and what could have gone better?".
My suggestions for improvement were largely centred on the wording of the question.
The two phrases are used when marking children's work by some schools. What went well, often abbreviated to WWW, ie what the child did a good job with, and then even better if, EBI, what they could have done to make the piece of work better. (Former primary school teacher)
So what's wrong with using plain, simple English? (Well, it might be clearly understood, and that might prove embarrassing.) We used to have a textbook in some branches of the civil service titled 'The Complete Plain Words' whose aim was to overcome the kind of jargon which is used to obfuscate the hearer / reader.
There's a further problem - Christians often use everyday words which they've endowed with very specialised meanings that other (ordinary?) mortals don't, and this doesn't help. Someone once asked if I truly believed I was degenerate; he got rather abrupt when I said I hoped not. Catch was, he was using the word in a spiritual, Calvinistic sense - ie morally and spiritually dead and degenerate unless I'd been 'born again' - without checking that I understood what he meant. I was using the word in the more common sense of being seriously morally lax. That wasn't the only time its happened!
Sorry, to add further to my already lengthy comment, I think the real problem with the statement was the phrase "[t]his process concluded that...". A process can only conclude in the sense of ending, not in the sense of reaching judgment. We say that "the jury concluded that..." and not "the trial concluded that...".
But that is exactly what the church is aiming for (entirely misguidedly) — a process which concludes, algorithmically, and whose results no one can be held responsible for.
The sentence preceding the one you quote says "[t]he complaint was looked into according to statutory safeguarding guidance in an NST-led process and an independent risk assessment undertaken."
The CofE website lists three members of the National Safeguarding Team (NST). In the case of an investigation of a Bishop, I'd venture that the leader of that team, the Director of Safeguarding, was heavily involved and is where I would start.
That said...
The language does rather suggest they are - as you say - trying to minimise the degree of human judgment that was exercised, but that's just not credible, of course. There cannot be an algorithm for these sorts of cases, as each one is difficult and complex (unless, of course, your algorithm is 'the more senior person is always credible', or something similarly asinine). In none of the employee grievance appeals processes that I've managed have I been 100% sure of all of the facts - there is always judgment involved.
Which means that you do need clarity about who is making the judgment.
So we are violently agreeing. The hiding behind the process and the slightly pompous language is strongly suggesting that they are using the 'process' as what Dan Davies has called an accountability sink.
But the NST, and the DoS specifically, is the thread I would start pulling on if I was going to find whom to hold to account.
But I am a victim of my professional upbringing, so I would argue that the episode shows an organisational and cultural issue, as a result of a lack of managerial competence in the organisation.
As someone who has spent a fair (an unfair?) amount of time listening to, reading and sometimes even using management jargon (jargon meaning "special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand", per the OED), I think there is further nuance in the statement.
"[N]o ongoing safeguarding concerns" means that no one vulnerable is currently at risk. If (!) you're a bit of a cynic like me, the 'currently', or 'ongoing' in the original, suggests that there was at least one previous occasion that should have raised safeguarding concerns, i.e. someone vulnerable was put at risk.
The second clause is ugly (why is someone engaging with an outcome?) but clearly implies that there was behaviour by the (then) Bishop that should have been different. The "fully engaged" means that the (then) Bishop has agreed to whatever was suggested as an intervention to change his behaviour. Given that the previous behaviour is implied to have put someone vulnerable at risk, you would hope this was a more robust intervention or set of interventions than doing some e-learning, but who knows?
I don't think the intention was necessarily to obscure or be vague - the meaning is quite clear to people who grok the jargon. I think rather it was an attempt to put the issue to bed (as it were) in a way that didn't create any hostages to fortune, particularly any potential legal issues. And, of course, the potential legal issues could be with respect to the person or persons who were deemed to be at risk, or indeed, with respect to the duties of the (then) Bishop's employers.
The jargon problem is a serious one. One of my children's schools recently asked me, in a survey about a parents' evening, "Let us know what went well or even better if ?". Makes perfect sense to someone who works in education and knows the jargon. Tough to understand if you don't.
OK. The school jargon absolutely defeated me.
It was explained to me that an "even better if?" is something that would have improved the outcome. So in plainer English, the question would have been "What went well and what could have gone better?".
My suggestions for improvement were largely centred on the wording of the question.
The two phrases are used when marking children's work by some schools. What went well, often abbreviated to WWW, ie what the child did a good job with, and then even better if, EBI, what they could have done to make the piece of work better. (Former primary school teacher)
Ah. Thanks.
WWW: The shuttle launched successfully
EBI: It hadn't blown up shortly afterwards.
Like that?
An excellent example of the past exonerative tense: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/past_exonerative
So what's wrong with using plain, simple English? (Well, it might be clearly understood, and that might prove embarrassing.) We used to have a textbook in some branches of the civil service titled 'The Complete Plain Words' whose aim was to overcome the kind of jargon which is used to obfuscate the hearer / reader.
I think David Turnbull has answered that: when you are trying to lawyer-proof an accusation of bad conduct, obscurity is your friend.
There's a further problem - Christians often use everyday words which they've endowed with very specialised meanings that other (ordinary?) mortals don't, and this doesn't help. Someone once asked if I truly believed I was degenerate; he got rather abrupt when I said I hoped not. Catch was, he was using the word in a spiritual, Calvinistic sense - ie morally and spiritually dead and degenerate unless I'd been 'born again' - without checking that I understood what he meant. I was using the word in the more common sense of being seriously morally lax. That wasn't the only time its happened!
Sorry, to add further to my already lengthy comment, I think the real problem with the statement was the phrase "[t]his process concluded that...". A process can only conclude in the sense of ending, not in the sense of reaching judgment. We say that "the jury concluded that..." and not "the trial concluded that...".
But that is exactly what the church is aiming for (entirely misguidedly) — a process which concludes, algorithmically, and whose results no one can be held responsible for.
The sentence preceding the one you quote says "[t]he complaint was looked into according to statutory safeguarding guidance in an NST-led process and an independent risk assessment undertaken."
The CofE website lists three members of the National Safeguarding Team (NST). In the case of an investigation of a Bishop, I'd venture that the leader of that team, the Director of Safeguarding, was heavily involved and is where I would start.
That said...
The language does rather suggest they are - as you say - trying to minimise the degree of human judgment that was exercised, but that's just not credible, of course. There cannot be an algorithm for these sorts of cases, as each one is difficult and complex (unless, of course, your algorithm is 'the more senior person is always credible', or something similarly asinine). In none of the employee grievance appeals processes that I've managed have I been 100% sure of all of the facts - there is always judgment involved.
Which means that you do need clarity about who is making the judgment.
So we are violently agreeing. The hiding behind the process and the slightly pompous language is strongly suggesting that they are using the 'process' as what Dan Davies has called an accountability sink.
But the NST, and the DoS specifically, is the thread I would start pulling on if I was going to find whom to hold to account.
But I am a victim of my professional upbringing, so I would argue that the episode shows an organisational and cultural issue, as a result of a lack of managerial competence in the organisation.