On the opening morning of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s (PCI) General Assembly, which is meeting in central Belfast until Friday, PCI’s Council for Social Witness (CSW), presented its report which sets out its vision for providing social care services. While addressing the challenges of providing care in the current environment, it also says that the Council is at a ‘defining moment’.
Presenting the report, which states that the Council also ‘stands at a significant point of transition’, Caroline Yeomans, Interim Director of the Council for Social Witness said that, “This is not an ordinary moment in the life of the Council for Social Witness. Nor is it an ordinary moment in the life of health and social care across Northern Ireland.
“For years, CSW has sought to demonstrate the compassion of Christ through practical service. We have cared for older people, supported those living with learning disabilities, provided rehabilitation services, and sought to stand alongside some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
“As our report reminds us, our calling has always been rooted in Christ’s command to love our neighbour, to act justly, to love mercy and to uphold the dignity of every person made in the image of God. That calling remains unchanged.”
In a hard-hitting and honest appraisal, Mrs Yeomans told the Assembly that the landscape of health and social care is vastly different today from the one in which many of PCI’s services were established.
“Government policy, commissioning practice and professional thinking have increasingly moved towards prevention, independence, community-based provision. Many of these changes are positive [as] they reflect a desire to give people greater independence, greater dignity and greater choice.
“Yet they also require providers like CSW to adapt, and the truth is that, as a Church organisation, we have not always adapted as quickly as the environment around us has changed. Some of our services were developed for a different era. Some of our structures were built for a different model of care. Alongside this changing environment, CSW has carried significant financial and regulatory pressures.”
The Interim Director explained that while the external environment changed rapidly, the level of strategic attention given to and by the Council did not match the scale of the changes. Furthermore, the Church, through its various structures, “collectively accepted arrangements that enabled underlying financial pressures to accumulate rather than be fundamentally addressed…[becoming] increasingly disconnected from the realities of modern health and social care.”
This has led, she said, to significant and unsustainable deficit of £3.6 million by the end of 2025, which “represents years of accumulated pressures, years of rising costs, years of increasingly complex care needs, years of policy change [and] years in which funding failed to keep pace with inflation and workforce pressures.”
Mrs Yeoman’s said that alongside these challenges sits the significant opportunity of recovery to restore confidence, rebuild trust and strengthen governance. “Recovery is about creating services that are sustainable, effective and fit for the future. Recovery is about ensuring that Christian social witness remains a vibrant and credible expression of the Church’s mission for generations to come. The Council has already begun that journey.”
She said that this journey may mean new partnerships, new models of service, a greater emphasis on community-based ministry and support. “It may mean releasing resources from areas that are no longer sustainable and investing in areas where emerging need is greatest. Those conversations are not easy.”
Describing this as a ‘defining moment for the Council for Social Witness’ Mrs Yeomans said that, “the years ahead will require courage; they will require honesty [and] they will require difficult decisions. But they will also require faith, faith that God is not finished with the Council for Social Witness, faith that recovery is possible, that renewal can emerge from challenge and faith that Christian social witness remains an essential part of the Church’s mission in this generation.”
In CSW’s Supplementary Report, the Council reports that it has recognised for some time that “as part of our recovery plan the Council would benefit from a re-structure process. Therefore, we have welcomed the engagement with the Structures and Resources Review Panel…” The Panel is looking at the structures of the central church and will present an interim report to the Assembly on Thursday.
Reflecting on the situation, in his address to the General Assembly, the Convener of the Council for Social Witness, Rev David Brice, said, “These challenging days within CSW has led us to face current realities and re-imagine the future. Over the coming year, initiated by the Structure Review Report, PCI will discuss the future of CSW, three options will be offered, an agency linked to PCI, an independent agency, a sell off to others. It is the first that we as a Council want to defend based on what we believe to be a biblical mandate…”
During his speech, he reminded the Assembly of that biblical mandate saying that PCI should do well to remember the conversation between the Apostle Peter and Jesus in the upper room at the Lord’s Supper when Jesus was washing the disciples’ feet, when Peter said, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “unless I wash you, you have no part with me…you also should wash one another’s feet I have set you an example” (John 13: 1-18).
Mr Brice continued, “There will be times when as a denomination we will make pronouncements that will not concur with the general consensus of society, there will be times when we will stand by the word of God and be criticised for that, but let that society know that we are in the feet washing business, let society know there is a compassion about us, a humbleness about us, that in serving God we have a heart for serving others.”
In the resolution the Council asked that “the General Assembly recognises the necessity of a recovery plan in whatever restructuring option is undertaken and welcomes the collaboration of the Council for Social Witness with the Support Services Committee and the General Council in exploring and finalising decisions in that recovery plan.”