A SUGGESTION that a “big stick” be deployed by the Archbishops’ Council to ensure that the Lowest Income Communities funding (LINC) reaches the poor parishes for which it was intended was heard by the General Synod on Tuesday.
Delivering an update on the work of the diocesan finances review, the chair of the Archbishops’ Council’s Finance Committee, Carl Hughes, reported that only two-thirds of LINC funding was reaching parishes in the 25 per cent most deprived areas. This was something that he felt “very strongly about”, he said; and a “light-touch” reporting framework was being proposed for dioceses, to “improve transparency and accountability”.
In the ensuing debate, speakers expressed concern about the statistic and the sufficiency of the proposed approach. The Revd Jonathan Macy (Southwark), who chairs the National Estates Churches Network, suggested that the figure was “absolutely shocking. . . You speak of things that are ‘light touch’, and I get why, but would you consider with that light touch an extra option akin to a big wooden stick to ensure that money actually goes to where it should be going?”
Mr Hughes told Mr Macy that he found it “disturbing” that the total was not reaching the poorest areas, and expressed hope that dioceses would hear what had been said. “I know that everyone feels that there is this huge weight of the centre of the church imposing its will across the Church. We have no power at all. I cannot require a diocese to do X, Y, or Z.”
But he was “determined” to try to increase the amount going to parishes “to the best of my ability”.
This was challenged by Canon Mark Miller (Durham), who said: “I think there is a stick. I serve in the most deprived parish in my diocese. . . You said you have no power, but I think your power is, unless this goes to the poorest parishes, you ain’t getting it next year.”
Mr Hughes responded: “I think that the most important thing for dioceses to hear is that Synod takes this extremely seriously, because that enables me to be very clear to our diocesan colleagues that accountability for LINC funding is something that we are going to be looking at very carefully.”
LINC was established in 2017 as part of the Renewal and Reform programme (News, 21 October 2016). Alongside Strategic Development Funding (SDF), it replaced the Darlow formula. It is allocated to dioceses on basis of the size and average income of their populations, modified to reflect the proportion of the population with very low incomes. In 2023, £29 million was awarded to 28 dioceses.
The 67 per cent going to the 25 per cent poorest areas reflects an increase on the figure reported in the Chote review of SDF and LINC, which put the total at 56 per cent, up from 35 per cent in 2017 (News, 11 March 2022). It reported that the amount had risen from £12.5 million in 2017 to £19.2 million in 2020.
Dioceses reported that the funding was supporting at least 1700 parishes, “and that many of them would not have their current level stipendiary clergy without that support”. An average of £14,000 was allocated to each parish supported.
A caveat was expressed that LINC “helped to sustain low as well as high quality ministry in poor parishes, given the difficulty of moving on or retraining relatively ineffective clergy”.
Most dioceses distributed the funding to their poorest parishes by formula through the parish-share system, the report said. But some dioceses treated it “more as part of general resources”.
In 2022, the diocese of Truro reported that it had used LINC to plug its operating-budget deficit, and set out plans to redirect it to work in deprived communities, half of the sum supporting stipends in these areas (News, 2 June 2023).
The diocesan-finances review reports that the most deprived communities have 60 per cent lower attendance and 40 per cent lower ministry per capita than the least deprived (News, 31 January).
