The 'Failed Wigan' model: lessons for Cornwall as mega benefice fails
Tis is serious news for Cornwall. Changes proposed for Diocese of Truro through controversial plans known as ‘On The Way’ are inspired by the Wigan ‘experiment’. They build on Cornwall's own 'Transforming' initiative - aka 'Transforming Mission' - i.e. moving ministry away from priests in parishes to large benefices with teams of 'workers' (Youth, Education, Pilgrimage etc) managed by an 'Oversight Minister'. Despite vociferous local opposition, they have been championed by the acting Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, and his predecessor the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen.
The ‘Transforming Wigan’ evaluation, published this week says the churches’ financial deficit has increased eight-fold. The present financial position is described as “critical”: “The new structure added layers of bureaucracy and was more complicated”.
Rev Marcus Walker, founder of Save The Parish nationally, commented on Twitter:
“This is an absolute shocker and should be a game changer. This is so important given how many other dioceses are implementing schemes following what we can safely call the Failed Wigan Model.
Giving has *collapsed*, as might be expected when your priests are removed, your parishes closed, your churches threatened with closure. This has resulted in the deficit for the deanery/megaparish ballooning. If you thought Wigan was unsustainable before…
This has to be a wake-up call for the rest of the Church. This has happened because we have allowed the poorer parts of our church to believe that they have to stand alone, and then allowed them to be the victims of snake-oil salesmen.”
Here is a summary of the evaluation by Church Times’s journalist Madeleine Davies – click here to read her article in the paper. She writes on Twitter:
"Transforming Wigan" was the first SDF (Church Commissioners' Strategic Development Fund) project & entailed creation of what has been described as a "super-benefice". Hats off to the diocese of Liverpool for publishing the full independent evaluation.
1. Project was ambitious. Wigan deanery is biggest in diocese & in 2013 the number of incumbents was cut (24 to 18).There were 33 buildings, many "substandard" & lowest level of giving in the diocese. The SDF bid warned: “in ten years’ time numbers and money will fall off a cliff.”
2. There was also significant opposition to the plan, with objections to Church Commissioners. I suspect many of those voices will feel somewhat vindicated by the evaluation, which highlights a fall in giving and legacies withdrawn. The financial deficit has increased eight-fold
3. Attendance has also fallen despite the creation of 29 new worshipping communities and “new missional initiatives" bringing in 1510 participants. I think the Chote review (of the Church Commissioners' Lowest Income Community Funding by Sir Robert Chote in 2022) made an important point about the length of people's faith journeys & the difficulty of measuring "mission"
4. I think the report will be read carefully in the light of the national goal for 10,000 new worshipping communities, & theory that growth will turn around finances (at least in the short term). Without ongoing support from diocese, no. of clergy in Wigan would have fallen to 8
5. It also raises questions about the consequences of attempts to simplify governance. The number of parishes reduced from 29 to 7 with concurrent reduction in PCCs, but people spoke of greater bureaucracy and complexity and a burden on officers
6. However, the evaluation highlights that the project has been "most successful in getting people of all ages to explore faith" and in creating a "permission-giving" environment in which lay leadership & social action flourished, incl during Covid
7. And we don't know what would have happened to numbers had Transforming Wigan not happened. Meanwhile, all other parishes in the diocese between 2022 and 2028 will be voting on whether to join with others in their deanery to become one parish. But will not be compelled to do so.
8. The evaluation also highlights the tension between starting new things, looking outward, and taking care of what already exists. Parishioners spoke of “loss of identity . . . and loss of traditions and theology, in particular, holy communion and music”.
Do concerns about the viability of giant new benefices sound familiar? They certainly echo the anxiety of worshippers across Cornwall about On The Way: click here to read a dossier compiling Cornish views which Save The Parish Cornwall presented to the acting Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Hugh Nelson, on 4 September 2023. We are calling for a moratorium on these deeply flawed plans.
There are lessons to be learned in Cornwall. Transforming Mission has been rolled out in five towns here – Camborne, St Austell, Falmouth, Highertown and Liskeard. Millions of pounds from the Church Commissioners have been poured into the county, and matched with spending from Diocesan reserves (60%-40%). Anyone who has observed these projects closely knows that they have not been a success.
In Camborne, for example, crowds of new worshippers and totally unrealistic rises in expected donations have not materialised. Instead money has been spent on capital works – which might be called vanity projects e.g. floodlighting the church at at cost of £10,000. This in a town where less than half a mile away the homeless are housed in shipping containers in a local car park.
“It is nothing short of a scandal that the Diocese has not been transparent about the lack of success of Transforming Mission projects in Cornwall,” says Neil Wallis from Save The Parish Cornwall. “New worshippers have not flooded in – and neither have their donations. The Diocese continually puts forward stories of successful ‘youth work’ – but sadly the substance behind these narratives has yet to be seen.”
Despite repeated requests, the Diocese of Truro has refused to carry out an honest, open and transparent evaluation of Transforming Mission in Cornwall.
Comments