THE Archbishop of York, at the opening of the General Synod in York on Friday, addressed confusion about the consensus of the Archbishops’ Council in its decision to disband the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) last year (News, 23 June 2023).

Before beginning his presidential address, the first item of business, Archbishop Cottrell said that he had made a mistake, last year, when he had told the Synod that the decision by the Archbishops’ Council to disband the board and sack its members had been “unanimous” (News, 14 July 2023).

“It has come to my attention that when I spoke in the ISB debate at the July Synod in 2023 I mistakenly said that the decision by the Archbishops’ Council to terminate the contracts of the two remaining members of the ISB was unanimous,” he said.

Dr Sarah Wilkinson’s report on the demise of the ISB, which was published in December (News, 15 December 2023), drew on emails and interviews and recorded that the council had voted 11 to four to terminate the contracts of Dame Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves the next day, with four members abstaining.

“Some members of the Council, including the Archbishops, wished to wait and not to proceed to an immediate termination,” she wrote. “One member of the Council proposed a pause before the termination to see if any other way forward was possible.”