Diocesan Synod meets to approve 2021 Financial Accounts while cuts debate rages

-

The Diocesan Synod meets on 28 May 2022 to approve its 2021 accounts amidst a fierce debate around the Bishop of Truro's planned cut programe.  The meeting will be open to the public (though no questions from the public will be permitted) and will be held at St Erme Community Centre (TR4 9BD) starting at 930am.

For anyone interested in learning more, the accounts can be downloaded from https://trurodiocese.org.uk/?s=Diocesan+accounts

Interestingly, they show that in the most recent financial year the diocese has actually made gains totalling £12.5m, while spending on its expensive mission programme Transforming Mission - funded by the Church Commissioners and Diocesan reserves - was £197,000 under budget.

The financial statements narrative says the Bishop has decided to “reset” the £6m Transforming Mission project which was initiated in Cornwall in 2017 and has since been rolled out amidst controversy, setbacks, delays and target failures in five Cornish towns - first Falmouth, then Liskeard, St Austell, Highertown and Camborne.  The project sets up 'resource churches' in these towns, while developing 'worshipping hubs' in outlying villages.

The narrative also states ‘the gains on investment assets of £5,841k and the unrealised gains on property revaluations of £7,305k contributed to total fund balances increasing from £101,274k to £113,748k”.

“The robust 2022 balance sheet shows we are totally right to call for a moratorium in the brutal cost-cutting involved in ‘On The Way’," says Save The Parish Cornwall. "Last year’s financial windfall alone eclipses any savings that would be made from taking priests out of parishes and closing our beautiful rural Cornish churches.”

Save the Parish Cornwall also welcomed the diocesan decision to “reset” Transforming Mission, which is funded by the Church Commissioners’ Strategic Development Fund (60%) and Diocesan reserves (40%). In Camborne alone, the projected grant over six years is more than £1m.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Save The Parish Cornwall responds to Diocese of Truro statement

-
Image
Save The Parish Cornwall issues the following response to a regrettable statement by the Diocese of Truro published on its website on 5 March 2024. The Diocese misleadingly says that Save The Parish Cornwall is 'targeting clergy' and providing inaccurate clergy figures. Save The Parish Cornwall’s recent analysis of clergy numbers in the Diocese shows that there were just 39 priests for Cornwall’s 200 plus parishes and 300 churches at the end of December 2023 - according to figures supplied by Church House sources at the end of January 2024. A further 19 other incumbencies remained vacant. Stipendiary priests in Cornwall at the end of December 2023, and their locations: data supplied by Church House sources to Save The Parish Cornwall at the end of January 2024. There was, therefore, one stipendiary priest to 15,000 people: the population of Cornwall is just over 600,000. The number of stipendiary priests in Cornwall at the end of December 2023 was 39. Save The Parish Cornw...
Read more

Cornwall's Bishops in tailspin after BBC Sunday Politics coverage

-
Image
Cornwall’s Bishops have been stung by hard-hitting coverage on BBC Sunday Politics South West of their controversial On the Way cost-cutting programme which is cutting clergy numbers, merging parishes and threatening church closures. In a 1200-word statement on the Diocese of Truro website , and an accompanying letter to all churches, the Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen, and the Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, complain about many aspects of the report ( click here to view the report ). The problem is, as so often with the Diocese of Truro statements, rhetoric does not coincide with reality. Truro complains (on the Diocesan website): “The report lasted just under five minutes but…. Much of the time was given to four speakers from a campaign group, three of whom have no connection with the church in Cornwall or with wider Cornish society." Save The Parish Cornwall explains: The four actually included two well-respected...
Read more

Diocese of Truro's Halloween budget - 10 key takeaways from draft report for November Synod

-
Image
You may be forgiven for not having caught up with the Diocese of Truro's draft budget report for 2025. It has only just been posted up on the Diocesan website, in sharp contrast with previous years when Diocesan Secretary Simon Cade has circulated draft budgets several months in advance, asking for comment.  It's no surprise that Church House will have wanted to keep this under wraps - it's their own 'Halloween' budget.  This isn't a budget for radical change. Rather a budget to manage a Diocese in chaos. A budget with a worryingly large deficit and a plan to plug ever increasing holes with fast-diminishing reserves. To read the details - due to be discussed at the Diocesan Synod on 23 November 2024 - click here. In the budget, the Diocese reneges on a public promise to Save The Parish Cornwall to stop a decline in clergy numbers: numbers are set to fall still further in 2025. Yet again, Church House costs will increase (despite pledges to cut them). And for the...
Read more