After the service she gives her a hug and asks her if she’s coming back
After the service, she gives her a hug and asks her if she’s coming back.In fact, All Saints, which has a sister church, Holy Trinity, Dalston, scores highly in almost all areas. I couldn’t write anything down and I was frantically trying to remember everything,” she says.Back at All Saints, Haggerston, Hudson-Wilkin has no difficulty recognising the stranger among her 50-odd strong congregation. One mystery worshipper, who goes by the name Sagacious, says: “I think my own church could really benefit from a mystery worshipper’s report. Sometimes, when you’re personally involved, you don’t see problems. You need an independent view of your church.” She has reviewed three houses of worship for the Ship of Fools: a drive-in church, a seamen’s church (which uses a binnacle as its baptismal font) and the Christ is the Answer Family Church in Barbados.She has never been outed as a mystery worshipper, although two weeks ago she had a few problems while trying to make covert notes.
“Two lovely ladies completely took me under their wing and sandwiched me between them. So, no problems there.” But no denomination has plans to adopt the practise – nor to introduce “Ofsted-style” inspections, which was suggested by the Bishop of Reading, the Right Rev Stephen Cottrell, in June.The Church of England currently has no centralised procedures to weed out failing clergy. Instead, it relies on the vigilance of its bishops, archdeacons and parishioners to spot and solve problems.If all else fails, the parish can claim “pastoral breakdown” with its priest and ask its bishop to step in. Jenkins also points out that priests are not imposed on parishes: when a vacancy comes up, the parochial parish council interviews and can reject any prospective clergymen.But for some Christians, that’s not enough. Ship of Fools stresses that the mystery worshippers’ reports are impressionistic rather than scientific – a subjective snapshot of each church at a particular moment in time.
That will mean the HSE will have to act by imposing enforcement orders and improvement notices. The ball game is changing as far as stress in the workplace is concerned.”Under the Health and Safety at Work Act, companies can already be technically sued for causing unnecessary stress at work. But cases are difficult to prove and no prosecutions have been brought by the Health and Safety Executive.The executive was anxious yesterday, to play down the potential impact on employers A spokesman said: “Enforcement is not the main way forward. We are more in the game of persuasion and encouragement.” But he admitted that trade unions and individuals could use the set of standards to bring their own legal actions against employers. “As we progress with this it does raise the game, the spokesman said. “Our inspectors are becoming more and more aware of the issue of stress in the workplace.” PRESSURE POINTSThe six standards set for firms under the code are:• Demands: staff should be able to cope with the demands of the job.• Control: staff should have an adequate say over how they do their work.• Support: staff should get adequate support from colleagues and superiors.• Relationships: staff should not be subjected to unacceptable behaviour such as bullying.• Role: staff should understand their role and responsibilities.• Role: staff should be involved in organisational changes..
