The acting Chair of the Church of England's National Safeguarding Panel has announced she is stepping down from all of her safeguarding responsibilities within the Church.
Meg Munn's departure follows a row over how safeguarding is being handled in the Church of England and the controversial decision of the Archbishops' Council to disband the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB), of which she was also acting Chair.
In a statement on her decision to quit, seen by the Church Times, she made scathing comments about the Church of England leadership, accusing the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, of "undermining" her work and describing the Archbishops' Council as "slow to learn".
She also called the ISB "a huge waste of money".
Responding to Munn's resignation, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York said in a joint statement: "We want to thank Meg for her work as Chair of the National Safeguarding Panel and interim Chair of the Independent Safeguarding Board – roles to which she brought huge expertise, rigour and dedication.
"We are of course saddened that she has chosen to stand down, but we understand and respect her decision.
"The remit of the interim Chair of the ISB and the other members was always to develop proposals to appoint a permanent independent Chair and additional board members. That work was always intended to move forward at pace towards the independent scrutiny that the Church urgently needs.
"This has been a very difficult period for all concerned and we regret recent events. We remain committed to moving swiftly towards a new safeguarding scrutiny body that is fully independent of the Church."
A spokesperson for the Church of England said: "We want to thank Meg Munn for the professional scrutiny she has brought to the Church's safeguarding work over the past five years both as independent chair of the National Safeguarding Panel (NSP) and her more recent work on wider independent scrutiny.
"Her contribution has been invaluable, and she has worked professionally at all times. We are very sorry that she has decided to leave her work with the Church but understand and absolutely respect her decision.
"We are aware there are lessons to be learnt as we move forward to the next steps in independent scrutiny and are sorry about events in the past few weeks that led her to feel unsupported. We wish Meg well and will build on the excellent work she has established through the NSP."
The Archbishops' Council said last month that it would be terminating the contracts of Munn and the two other members of the ISB. Munn was to stay on for the short term "to provide business continuity" until new arrangements were made.
The two sacked members of the ISB, Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves, were both critical of the Church of England leadership when they made surprise addresses to its General Synod over the weekend.
Mr Reeves said that when the Archbishops' Council talked of independence, they did not mean it in the way that "you and I and the average person in the street means independence".
"They mean semi-detached, not independent," he said.
Ms Sanghera said: "I now think that we were too independent. We did our job too well and when I'm being told, and Steve is being told, that we are too survivor-led and too survivor-focussed, I feel the Church has a problem."
On Monday, safeguarding campaigner Gavin Drake announced he was resigning as a member of Synod because it was not worth wasting his time "if Synod members cannot get their voice heard on safeguarding".
Explaining his decision, he accused the Archbishops' Council and the Synod's Business Committee of "manipulating the agenda and standing orders" to block debate on his motion calling for an independent inquiry into safeguarding in the Church of England.
"It is clear that independent oversight and scrutiny scares the powers that be – despite their words that they welcome it. The Archbishops' Council think that they can just power on and do the next safeguarding thing, whatever that 'thing' is," he said.
He continued, "If the General Synod of the Church of England is unable to hold the Archbishops' Council and its National Safeguarding Team to account, if we are unable to bring about proper change, if we are going to be blocked from hearing from who we want to hear from, and stopped from debating what we want to debate, then what is it for?
"As I said, I joined the Synod to make the Church of England of safer place. I have failed, because the central machinery of the Church of England will use all its power to block the Synod from doing what it exists to do.
"I will not waste any more of my time in it. I was here to make a difference. If I can't make a difference, there is no point me being here."
