Not enough, Bishop! Keynote address is progress but falls badly short

It was gratifying to see how much the Bishop of Truro took to heart the views of Save The Parish Cornwall in his address to the DiocesanSynod on 28 May 2022. 

The campaign’s message against his draconian OnThe Way cost cutting programme was clearly heard. On The Way involves clergy redundancies which threaten the closure of historic churches, while millions are at the same time being poured into controversial ‘mission church’ programmes – known as Transforming Mission (sometimes in the same deanery).

However, the speech by the Rt. Rev. Philip Mounstephen, Bishop of Truro - as well as other comments at the Synod by the Bishop of St Germans, the Rt. Rev. Hugh Nelson - still left much unsaid about the future of the priesthood in the diocese.

Both proved the continuing need for the full, honest and transparent scrutiny of diocesan finances that the Save the Parish campaign has been calling for in Cornwall. STP is calling for full disclosure of the budgets and actual expenditure of the Transforming Mission projects.

Bishop Philip began by unveiling “four critical decisions” his team has made for the Church of England across Cornwall in the future.

HE SAID: the first critical decision is that the conflicting major finance-led schemes On The Way and Transforming Mission, previously declared to be totally separate, are to be brought together under a single ‘overall project board’ chaired by Bishop Hugh.

WHAT HE DIDNT SAY: How it would work, who would be on it, what its remit would be, whether it would have executive powers or be merely advisory. He did not say who would control the finances and deal with any potential conflicting interests between the two programmes.

HE SAID: the method of financing a new part-time Director of Change and Renewal to see through the integration had changed. He admitted that his original intention to fund the post from diocesan reserves had now been dropped (there were protests to him from STP on cost grounds) and instead the national Church Commissioners would make an ‘initial grant’ of £140,000 towards the bill. He described as ‘fanciful’ STP Cornwall reports that a large support team would be built around the new Director.

WHAT HE DIDNT SAY: Bishop Philip did not say what that £140,000 would pay for. He also kept silent on the large ‘office staffing structure’ that would be led by the new Director of Change and Renewal and its financial ramifications. This staffing structure was detailed in the job description in April 2022 posted up on national recruitment sites. This structure includes ‘Project admin posts’, ‘Project officer posts’, a ‘Programme Manager for Mission’, and ‘Implementation Advisors/Officers’.

HE SAID: The second critical decision was to promise to ‘reduce Church House costs by at least £250,000 and savings of at least that amount’ in 2022.

WHAT HE DIDNT SAY: That’s what was promised when the 2022 budget was finalised last year. The Bishop on Saturday mentioned redundancies but failed to give details.  He also did not explain the inevitable financial ramifications of the new Director of Change and Renewal’s ‘office staffing structure’ mentioned above.

HE SAID: The third critical decision involved the annual £800,000 granted to Cornwall by the Archbishops’ Council known as the Lower Income Community Fund. This would at last actually be spent on supporting ministry in ‘areas of economic deprivation’, the Bishop said. He confessed ‘for too long we have used this money just to underwrite our deficit - but no longer’.

WHAT HE DIDNT SAY: Money which was used to underwrite the deficit – inevitably to cover Church House costs - should have rightly been used to save the pain and distress on priests and parishes in areas battered by On The Way cuts.

What we needed to hear from the Bishop was an assurance that LICF money will not be used in existing Transforming Mission projects, simply to increase the payroll and adding to the resources already devoted to these expensive schemes.

Even so, Save the Parish Cornwall welcomes this long-overdue third critical decision.

HE SAID: The fourth critical decision was ‘as a matter of integrity’ to start to ‘replicate’ the huge cash windfalls Transforming Mission brought to five church clusters in Cornwall with cash grants to deaneries that have not so far received TM funding. This will amount to ‘at least £2m over the next five to seven years’.

WHAT HE DIDNT SAY: Where exactly this money would be spent. He failed to address the fact that huge sums of TM funds often poured into one parish in a Deanery while priests in a next-door area - or even in the same parish - faced deep uncertainty over their personal future. Discussion about this in On The Way in lengthy discussions over many months have put clergy and congregations under enormous stress and anxiety.

HE SAID: Bishop Hugh, in replying to a question asking for details of TM “original Sustainability Model Spreadsheets”, ignored the request. Instead, he repeated figures published by the Diocese elsewhere earlier in the month as an example of TM success e.g. “Camborne at the start of its TM Project (in 2019) had contact with just 20 young people. Now…. that figure has risen to astonishing 460 children and almost 230 parents and carers.”

WHAT HE DIDNT SAY: The figure of 20 has surprised and upset many involved in Camborne cluster. This statistic works out on average across the five churches in the cluster as one child per church per week.

Tuckingmill Church youth work in 2018

Yet in October 2018, a diocesan background document to an Interim Priest in Charge position at Camborne detailed Camborne’s main St Martin & St Meriadoc Church as having a ‘regular Sunday School’, ‘Boys Brigade’ (which met every Monday) and ‘Girls Brigade’ (met every Friday), also ‘Dance in Worship groups for adults and children’. It also said that affiliated Infants and Junior schools ‘appreciate and welcome weekly Assemblies’. It also flagged up good links between the church and the local secondary school Camborne Academy. Other churches in the cluster offered good school links and various child-centric groups, this document said.

In another TM recruitment document dated 18 September 2020, almost two years later, the same level of church involvement with young people was stated.

The discrepancy between stated figures – and the reality on the ground – undermines the credibility of the Bishop’s statement.

There is also no break-down of how the ‘new’ total of 460 is reached.

WHAT HE ALSO DIDNT SAY: Bishop Hugh completely ignored the request for transparency over the TM business plan, sustainability targets, funding, effectiveness, keeping them totally shrouded in secrecy. He didn’t tell us why it needed to be kept from public gaze either.

HE SAID: The Bishop of Truro repeatedly said that the parish mattered and that he  - and his ministry - was driven ‘the local’.

WHAT HE DIDN’T SAY

Church of England surveys have shown that churches and parishes thrive with a dedicated parish priest. Those who lose them can wither and die. There is a real need for priests to work with people at parish level. Churches, with their roots in every community in the land, are ideally placed, if staffed, to relate to people living through life's daily highs and lows.