STP reviews diocesan numbers in a fringe meeting at General Synod
A range of Synod members, including John Spence, the Church of England’s Head of Finance, and his deputy came to hear what three of our financial scrutiny team had to say about finance and figures in the Church, and improving the husbandry of a charity's financial resources. We would love you to watch it for yourself – you can find it online at https://youtu.be/45nrep1IvWk
First in the video, you can hear my introduction (1.30-5.30) dispelling the myth that diocesan ‘mega-parish’ schemes are necessary for financial reasons. The presentation shows how instead our parishes fund the dioceses, with more money coming upstream from the parishes to the dioceses, via parish share and from the Diocesan Stipends Funds (money generated for stipends by the ‘glebe' which was taken from parishes to dioceses by statute in 1976), than goes back from the dioceses to the parishes for parish ministry.
Andrew Orange (5.30-16.48) talks about the funds that could be liberated for more clergy stipends by reducing diocesan staff overheads. Diocesan administration costs are very high in proportion to what is spent on parish ministry. The worst staff-to-clergy ratio we have seen to date occurs in a diocese whose own staff represent a whopping 45% of the total staff deployed in that diocese. That is nearly one manager for every parish priest. Andrew points out that the problem with diocesan expense is not that diocesan staff don’t work hard - we know that many of them work very hard for our church - but that with 42 dioceses there is “immense duplication”.
Finally, Stephen Billyeald (17.30-24.13) talks about the funds which could be freed up for stipends by better use of Diocesan Stipends Funds (DSFs), which could also contribute to lowering parish share… Currently only 10 dioceses out of 40 (excluding Sodor and Man and Europe, which don’t have DSFs) have adopted Total Return Accounting (TRA) as they are allowed to do. If all the dioceses used TRA, that would free up another £44m for clergy stipends! So there is no financial need to cut clergy numbers.
You can find out here whether or not your diocese is managing its glebe well and using Total Return Accounting using the detailed information on our website at - https://savetheparish.com/diocesan-stipends-funds/. If you find these things are not being done, Stephen recommends asking why not, perhaps at diocesan synod or in a letter or email to your Diocesan Secretary. Your diocesan staff could speak to some of the teams at dioceses who are using these methods – we are great believers in mutual support rather than reinventing the wheel! Ben Preece-Smith, who is the Diocesan Secretary in Gloucester Diocese has kindly said that he would be happy to chat to other diocesan staff about his experience.
Please don’t forget that we also have other advice on our website, e.g.: https://savetheparish.com/how-to-object-to-pastoral-reorganisation-proposals/.
It is entirely within your rights to challenge amalgamation plans. The MPM Code of Practice (para 2.35, third bullet, and para 2.38) shows that the diocese must consider alternatives: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/MPM%202011%20Code%20of%20Practice%20-%20volume%201%20-%206th%20May%202021.pdf
So much has been done, but we have so much more to do and we need your help:
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