CLERGY BOSSES STEAM-ROLL THROUGH CUTS AND CHANGE PLANS DESPITE CONSULTATION FIASCO

Senior clergy in Carnmarth North Deanery steam-rolled through their On The Way plan on Wednesday (15/6/22) despite Rural Dean Caspar Bush admitting that the 67-page document had only been distributed to parishioners at the last minute and there was no time for proper consultation.

Rev Bush only sent the document out to Deanery Representatives on Sunday morning (12/6/22) due to a ‘technical glitch’ with the Diocese. This meant that in the best-case scenario – if the plan had been then immediately been distributed to congregations by the Deanery representatives, who were not instructed to do so – congregations had just over three days to digest proposals which will change church life forever.

In fact some present at the meeting at St Mary's Church, Portreath, said that their Parochial Church Councils were unaware that the Deanery Synod was taking place.

“We can’t pretend that’s been done as well as it should have been done,” Rev Bush said. “I put my hand up on that. I give my apologies about the way this has come about.”

He said that a two-page summary had been sent out a few weeks earlier.

But the full 67-page plan (a 29-page main report plus four appendices), envisaging a new Deanery Evangelism Unit and the merger of Transforming Mission Camborne and On The Way, contains many more details.  These included the following positions to be funded by the Church Commissioners’ Lowest Income Community Fund (LICF):

• -         A stipendiary priest to lead evangelism and a team of staff (£55,000 including expenses)
• -         A children and families workers (£33,000 including expenses)
• -         Two youth worker trainees (£16,000)
• -         A Christians Against Poverty support worker or workers (£33,500 including expenses)
• -         A part-time Parish Nurse (£15,000)

Vote

It was accepted by 14 votes for, six against and four abstentions. The narrow margin of victory was made possible by the votes of the very clergy who actually drew up the On The Way plan. Proxy votes were not accepted.  A final vote will be taken at a meeting on 14 July 2022.

Before the vote, made publicly by a show of hands, key members of Rev Bush’s On The Way clergy team made impassioned pleas in its support: Rev Rosheen Browning (Camborne), Rev Adamson (Camborne) and Rev Steve Robinson (Illogan).

There was no invitation for anyone with a different view to make a counter-argument. Parishioners at the public meeting who were not official deanery representatives were not allowed to speak. 

Rev Bush concluded: “If you don’t vote this through, we could have only three priests rather than four.”

Questioned about what was branded in the room as a threat, he said it was simply a reality that the Episcopal College could refuse to make money available if this plan didn’t go through.  Central to the plan is a £213,000 grant requested from the Diocese (£71,000 annually over three years).

New unit

The new Deanery Evangelism Unit will be led by Rev Graham Adamson, currently Minister for Camborne. Rev Adamson will now become a peripatetic minister working across the Deanery’s five benefices. This will leave Camborne Cluster and its 26,000 parishioners with one priest in charge – the Rev Rosheen Browning. 

Rev Adamson, formerly Rev Bush’s curate at Redruth, will leave the Transforming Mission Camborne team to lead the new unit. His position, currently funded by the Ministry and Mission Fund (MMF), from now on will be funded by the Church Commissioners’ LICF intended originally to help the poorest in our communities. His job will be to ensure that TM staff and other LICF staff funded by the plan will work together.

“We like the idea that a ‘resource church’ (such as Camborne now is) should be a resource for the wider deanery,” said Rev Bush.

Rev Bush said this new position would not be advertised and would be automatically taken up by Rev Adamson: “This post will be filled by Graham who has security by virtue of common tenure.”

Transforming Mission to merge with On The Way

Rev Bush also confirmed that Camborne’s controversial Transforming Mission and the Deanery’s On The Way plan would merge.  Transforming Mission Camborne’s budget has recently been ‘re-forecast’ due to neither new churchgoers, nor their expected donations, materialising. It has drawn criticism locally due to the very large amounts of money being poured into it by the Church Commissioners (60%) and Diocesan reserves (40%) – despite little indication that it is working.

Responding to a question about the management of the two separate budgets involved, Rev Bush assured the Synod that – despite the poor management and accountability to date at Transforming Mission Camborne– there would be clear and transparent oversight of budget management in the immeasurably more complex new office.

New jobs

Asked by Deanery representatives how the plan could justify the high salaries detailed above – particularly in Camborne where the homeless are living in shipping containers, Rev Robinson (Illogan) he was confident that the plan’s proposed Christian Against Poverty workers would have clear insights into the situation and be able to tackle resistance to the idea.

Bottom up or top down

Rev Bush also gave the lie throughout the evening to the idea that the On The Way process was ‘bottom up’ rather than ‘top down’ and that the Bishops of Truro and St Germans and the Archdeacon had not been involved – citing intervention by and meetings with the Bishops on several occasions e.g.

“In conversation with Bishop Hugh (Nelson) and Archdeacon Paul (Bryer) on 7 April, we were encouraged to be bold in our planning and not to be afraid of asking what we need to carry out our vision.”

Regular On The Way updates from the Leadership Team’s David Fieldsend have also indicated this.

In other deaneries where Leadership Teams have met opposition to proposals, Bishop Hugh has explicitly said that if his preferred plan was not voted through, he would push it through anyway.

 PCC mergers

These are envisaged in the plan in Camborne and also in Redruth, where the process has already started. This process - aimed at centralising control and simplifying administration procedures for the priest-in-charge - has been strongly resisted elsewhere by parishioners who believe it removes local agency and voice.

“There is nothing in the plan where we are recommending that,” Rev Bush said in answer to a question, despite references to this on pages five and nine of the document. “I suppose I should offer a mild assurance that there could be legal consultation and notices before this happens.”

Roundtable reports in the plan

These were particularly revealing but not taken to account. Across the deanery, respondents to On The Way surveys said they felt that the Bishops did not listen, that priests have been forced to become managerial rather than spiritual, that the MMF call was unrealistic and - they wanted priests back in the parishes.

ends