Inner Change was shut down earlier in the month on the grounds that it breached the Prison Service’s diversity policy.
Bishop Wallace Benn claimed that the Prison Service’s diversity policy was “nothing but a secularised misunderstanding of the multi-faith issue... For Christianity to be under pressure to water down basic convictions on a voluntary and successful course is an infringement of religious liberty.”
Benn wrote that the Prison Service’s line was “regrettable”, he continued by saying that it was disgraceful for the Chaplain to “appear to acquiesce and collude” to the decision of the Prison Service, reports the Church of England Newspaper.
He continued saying that: “If the Venerable William Noblett cannot or will not support the faithful teaching of the Christian faith, in a non-watered down way, then I respectfully suggest that he should resign.”
The Prison Service however defended its position and their employee, the Chaplain General. The Director General, Phil Wheatley said that the Prison Service Chaplaincy under William Noblett’s leadership had made “huge strides over the last few years to develop and inclusive and relevant chaplaincy.”
Wheatley said that Inner Change was closed because it failed to prove it could meet the ‘What Works’ principles of the Prison Service, as well as the issue of the diversity policy.
However, defenders of Inner Change have claimed that the programme should have been given the three to four year trial that they expected, and that the trial should also have been judged under chaplaincy provision, and not just the purely secular criteria of the Prison Service.
