THE new national body to replace the Archbishops’ Council will have to have “particular regard” for the cure of souls in poorer parishes in the use of Church Commissioners’ funding.
An amendment to this effect, proposed by the Rector of St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield, the Revd Marcus Walker (London), was carried during a debate on the draft National Churches Governance Measure.
The draft Measure will reduce the National Church Institutions (NCIs) from seven to four, and create a new body, the Church of England National Services (CENS), into which the functions of the Archbishops’ Council will be subsumed.
The Bishop of Bath & Wells, Dr Michael Beasley, warned during the debate of the “grave financial deficits” imperilling parish ministry, and the potential for national funding to be allocated “disproportionately to centrally driven projects”.
The Church Commissioners distributes funding to dioceses through the Archbishops’ Council, whose grant-giving programmes — including Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment grants — totalling £400 million in the current triennium. This function will be transferred to CENS under the new Measure, clause eight of which concerns payments to it from the Commissioners.
These payments entail two streams: funds that could have been paid to the Archbishops’ Council under the 1998 Measure that established the Archbishops’ Council (with particular regard given to the “provision for cure of souls in parishes where help most required”), and payments that could have been paid to the Archbishops’ Council under the Miscellaneous Provisions Measure 2018 (grants for the purposes of any of the Archbishops’ Council’s functions).
The revision committee reports that this clause has caused concern, and that some respondents were keen to ensure that particular regard be given to the requirements of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1840 for “making provision for the cure of souls in parishes where such assistance is most required”.
The committee argues that the General Synod is “a legislative and deliberative body” that “cannot bind the Commissioners or the members of CENS on how they exercise their functions as charity trustees which must not be exercised under the direction of another person or body”. But it explains that the Measure has been amended to stipulate that proposals for inclusion in the funding framework must be laid before the Synod for its consideration, and that the CENS are bound to have “due regard” to the views of the Synod.
Fr Walker’s amendment requires that, in using an amount paid by the Church Commissioners under the second stream (Miscellaneous Provisions Measure 2018), CENS have particular regard to the 1840 Act, relating to the making of additional provision for the cure of souls in parishes where such assistance is most required.
Moving his amendment, Fr Walker — who chairs the Save the Parish movement — expressed concern that “the way in which have looked after and resourced and funded the churches in the poorest communities of our land has failed” (Comment, 31 January).
In large parts of the country, it was not possible for giving to fund ministry, he said. “Queen Anne knew this and set up an endowment to fund ministry in the poorest parts of the country. . . We have been doing this for centuries, until recently. What I am proposing is to put this back into our legislation so that whenever funding decisions are taken there is a priority for the poor.”
Responding, the Dean of Bristol, the Very Revd Mandy Ford (Southern Deans), a member of the revision committee, expressed concern that the amendment would “complicate the decision-making process”.
Carl Hughes, who chairs the Archbishops’ Council’s Finance Committee, said that he agreed with the “substance” of the amendment. But he warned of “an enormous amount of additional bureaucracy and wasted time within Church House”. More money was being spent under the Miscellaneous Provisions Measure 2018 (£38 million in 2023) than had been expected, he suggested. But this was due to the instructions of the Synod, which had approved spending on initiatives such as racial justice and net zero.
The amendment was carried by a show of hands. In a newsletter sent subsequently to supporters of Save the Parish, Fr Walker reported that those voting in favour had included the Bishops of London, Blackburn, Leeds, Exeter, Bath & Wells, and Dudley. Save the Parish had “come of age”, he wrote.
Supporting the amendment, the Bishop of Dudley, the Rt Revd Martin Gorick, who is currently the Acting Bishop of Worcester, spoke of his desire to see that “provision for the cure of souls was kept front and central in all we do. . . Money in the end is the sacrament of seriousness.”
Dr Beasley said that the use of the income from the Church’s endowment was “best determined locally”, in line with the purposes for which the endowment was given: “the provision of the cure of souls in parishes where such assistance is most required”. This purpose was “ever more urgent as dioceses around our country face grave financial deficits that imperil the future of parish ministry in our land”.
He warned that the absence of the amendment would “result in a latitude to the new CENS body to commit our money disproportionately to centrally driven projects which, however laudable they may be, are not on line with the purposes for which the endowment was given”.
On Friday, Dr Beasley had been due to move a diocesan-synod motion calling for a transfer of assets worth £2.6 billion from the Commissioners to diocesan stipend funds, to be used to support parish ministry (News, 31 January). He moved an adjournment of the debate, in the wake of a debate on the Vacancy in See Committees Regulation.
He told the Synod that 35 dioceses had been in deficit at the end of last year, to a total of £61 million. “Our financial situation is having a catastrophic effect on our mission and ministry, and our Church’s financial architecture is not working and is bringing us close to an existential crisis. I would that we had been afforded proper time to discuss this in place of the semantics of the last three hours that we have just engaged in.”
Fr Walker expressed concern that the debate would now take place after the work of the Triennium Funding Working Group had concluded its work. The Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, who chairs the group, assured the Synod that the motion had been heard.
