National Safeguarding Policy and Development Manager

Job Description

As the National Policy Development Manager, you will play a crucial role in the National Safeguarding Team, offering strategic guidance and managing a team of policy professionals. Reporting to the Deputy Director for Development, you will be an integral part of the NST Leadership Team. This role demands substantial experience in senior-level safeguarding work, public speaking, and complex policy writing.

• To operate at a strategic level, providing expert advice and guidance to senior church leaders, including the Deputy Director for Development on matters of policy and policy development.
• To lead a team who manages and review effective processes for the development and implementation of a range of national safeguarding policies, codes of practice and guidance, including the development of project plans for policy development and implementation based on sound project management principles.
• To coordinate the policy team to ensure they undertake the necessary policy and guidance development arising from the implementation of national reviews of the Church, including but not exclusive to: the investigation carried out by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse into the Anglican Church (2020), the review led by Keith Makin in relation to the late John Smyth QC (2024) and the Charity Commission (England and Wales) Regulatory Action Plan for the Archbishops Council (2025).
• To ensure that the policy team work collaboratively and engage all relevant stakeholders in the policy development and implementation process, including survivors, relevant lead bishops, clergy, church working groups, Regional Safeguarding Leads, Diocesan Safeguarding Officers / Cathedral Safeguarding Officers, including through the establishment of project working groups.
• To ensure that engagement takes place with technical / functional experts relevant to the policy field, including academics, legal advisors, HR experts, and data protection officers, as well as researching the evidence base for the policy area, ensuring consistency with national, canon and ecclesiastical law and policy.
• Ensuring the policy produced by the policy team is relevant to all parts of the Church, in particular: dioceses, parishes, cathedrals, religious communities and Theological Educational Institutions, and is informed by learning from within the Church (e.g. from Safeguarding Practice Reviews and diocesan / national audits).
• Overseeing the work undertaken with relevant stakeholders to develop implementation plans for new and revised policies.
• Working with NST colleagues at a leadership level to support a cycle of learning and review for national safeguarding policy.
• Following governance processes for the approval of new and amended policies, including the preparation of timely, appropriate papers and reports for the National Safeguarding Steering Group, National Safeguarding Panel, General Synod and others.
• Leading work to engage with other departments and working parties across the NCIs to ensure that their work and initiatives reflect national safeguarding policy.
• Overseeing the safeguarding e‑manual, including the maintenance and support contract and ensuring that it is kept up to date.
• Working with Legal and other relevant functions to amend canon and ecclesiastical legislation relevant to safeguarding, by developing policy instructions, and supporting consultation and the drafting of new or revised legislation.
• Building relationships and working with survivor groups and individual survivors, and colleagues in the NST:
  • to ensure that the survivor perspective is present in safeguarding policies.
  • to ensure that the survivor perspective is present in other areas of development and activity such as safeguarding training and quality assurance.
• Effectively lead a policy team to prepare briefings, responding to and contributing to communications, and answering queries from dioceses and other Church Bodies on relevant aspects of safeguarding policy.
• This role has line management responsibility for a small team of Policy Officers and a Policy Lead.
• Represent the National Safeguarding Team Senior Leadership Team at strategic and…