Letter from Bishop Michael Kennedy: publication of the ACSL report
To the People of the Diocese
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Re: Outcomes of the Safeguarding Audit of the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle
As you may know, late in 2023 our Diocese was the subject of an external audit to measure our compliance against the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards and, more importantly, an independent assessment of the Diocese’s inculturation of a safeguarding ethos in all our ministries, provision of services and other activities.
I am very pleased to advise that the audit report has now been published and the Diocese has achieved an outstanding result of 98 per cent of the indicators of compliance having been assessed as being 'Developed and Embedded' or 'Developed'. The audit report is available for review and download from the ACSL website: https://www.acsltd.org.au/about-us/publications-and-reports/
I asked ACSL to ensure that the audit was particularly rigorous. The audit was conducted by Australian Catholic Safeguarding Ltd. (ACSL) and Prolegis Lawyers, an independent legal firm, whose senior auditor was a solicitor for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. I believed this rigour was particularly important because our Diocese has been so terribly affected by the scourge of child sexual abuse, and because many survivors are suffering ongoing, even lifelong trauma.
The audit process extended over many months, culminating in a team of auditors spending two weeks in the Diocese, interviewing over 100 parishioners, students and parents, clergy, employees and volunteers and conducting site audits of 34% of our parishes, three of our Diocesan schools and the head offices of the Diocese. The Diocese also made a voluminous submission to the auditors, evidencing our safeguarding practices that consisted of almost 43,000 words of written text and some 400 individual documents or web page references.
I have reviewed the report and spoken with the auditors and I am particularly pleased with their summary judgement that “the Diocese is successfully implementing and embedding a culture of safeguarding throughout its organisation.”
These results are outstanding and those who participated in the audit should be rightfully proud of their achievement, particularly the people of the parishes and schools that were audited. I acknowledge those in the Bishop's Office and the Office of Safeguarding who diligently supported our parishes and schools and facilitated ACSL and Prolegis to undertake their audit. I also wish to acknowledge the late Bishop William Wright, under whose leadership and guidance our Diocese made significant progress in developing its safeguarding culture.
Nevertheless, there is more to do. The auditors made seven recommendations to improve safeguarding practices within the Diocese; these recommendations have been accepted in full, and work has already commenced on implementing them. Audit recommendations are classified according to priority and urgency for remediation, and I am heartened there are no Priority 1 (high priority) recommendations for our Diocese.
As Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, I assure you that over the coming years the Diocese will maintain its current momentum and we will continue to refine and improve our safeguarding knowledge and practices, so that the safeguarding of each child and every vulnerable person is a wholly integrated and an intrinsic part of everything that we do in our Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.
Yours in Christ
Most Reverend Michael Kennedy
Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle
