The Rt Rev Anthony Priddis has been Chair of the Church’s Central Safeguarding Liaison Group for the last nine years.

He feels it is time to let someone else take over the national role.

“I am now not only a full time diocesan Bishop but also a member of the House of Lords, a position I take very seriously. I also believe we have reached a point when a lot has been achieved and so I feel it is time to move on and let someone else take over,” he said.

The Church’s Central Safeguarding Liaison Group was a new group when Bishop Priddis was appointed Chair but has since evolved into a group that involves both the Anglican Church and the Methodist Church working together.

It has produced a number of reports including two versions of “Protecting All God’s Children”, which is the parish policy for the safeguarding of children in churches and “Promoting a Safe Church” aimed at the protection of vulnerable adults.

“The whole area of safeguarding is a minefield and opens up to things like domestic abuse which we issued a national policy on and we produced a guide to safer recruiting," said Bishop Priddis.

“But I feel the work has reached a point at which I can move on because we have just produced 'Responding Well', a result of our work with victims or survivors as they choose to call themselves so I feel the work has come full circle.”

As Bishop in charge, Bishop Priddis was the chief overseer of one of the most comprehensive reviews of Church of England staff, clergy and lay ministers ever taken. Under the review, more than 40,000 diocesan files dating back more than 30 years from across the Church of England's 44 dioceses were examined by independent reviewers.

“The safeguarding of children in our care is central to all our activities and any case of harm that occurs is a source of deep regret and pain,” said Bishop Priddis.

“The comprehensive review exercise launched in 2007 gave us the opportunity to open up a huge volume of material for independent reviewers to examine. While no such review can be perfect, and we can never let our vigilance slip in this vital area of concern, we have done all we can to ensure that it has been as comprehensive as possible.”

The bishop will stand down at the end of this week when he attends his last Church Safeguarding Conference in York on January 20. He will be succeeded by Bishop Paul Butler, Bishop of Southall and Nottingham.

The House of Bishops produced its first policy document on child protection in 1995, which was updated in 1999 and then again in 2004. The Church continues to learn and improve its good practice from the experiences of parishes and dioceses since the publication of the first document and from new statutory guidance.