Penpushers outnumber priests in Diocese of Truro
The news comes as a petition calling for a suspension in divisive radical reorganisation plans in the diocese burst through the significant 1,000 signature barrier this week. The petition, signed by 1,070 worried churchgoers in just a few weeks, warns that the plans - championed by Bishop Hugh and known as On The Way - will lead to sharply reduced stipendiary clergy numbers in Cornwall as Church House lay staff numbers rise.
The diocese’ own records reveal that the number of stipendiary priests currently in post carrying out pastoral duties, conducting services, and “curing souls” in the county is at an all-time record low, just 39 for the 200 plus parishes and 300 churches.
There are currently around 600,000 people living in Cornwall: this means there are now more than 15,000 people per priest.
Another 19 other paid priest roles - incumbencies - remain vacant and unoccupied, many long-term. Which means One in three stipendiary priest roles in Cornwall are unfilled.
The Diocese is struggling to recruit new priests to undertake the unrealistic roles proposed by the restructuring plans – in particular ‘oversight ministers’ to run teams of paid employees (like administrators, debt counsellors and Education Officers) in giant benefices.
These roles would challenge experienced priests but in at least one deanery, the diocese this month has appointed two inexperienced curates to undertake the demanding posts. Another young curate has been appointed to the challenging double role of being both a Rector and a Pioneer Minister, and fourth has been made a Priest-in-Charge.
Other in-situ stipendiary priests already based in Cornwall are retiring early or taking stipendiary posts north of the Tamar rather than agree to the Oversight Ministry model.
The Diocese also announced on its website that two more experienced priests – from the Diocese of Oxford, one of whom will also become an Oversight minister - will be licensed in Cornwall sometime later this year. But this will not redress the destructive unbalance between bureaucrats and practicing priests in parishes.
Numbers of employed priests have been allowed to continue to fall to record lows despite repeated public pledges last summer by the then Bishop of Cornwall Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen that they would be boosted. In May 2023 on BBC Radio Cornwall he said that the diocese would have 80+ stipendiary priests in post by summer 2024.
That was a promise of an extra 42 extra stipendiary priests - more than the number actually in post currently.
Yet sadly as the number of priests falls, the number of bureaucrats at Church House rises. According to the diocese official budget published in October 2023 there were the equivalent of 38.3 full-time paid lay jobs on the books at Church House last year, and staffing is budgetted to increase to 40.6 this year 2024.
This means 39 stipendiary priests employed versus 40.6 bureaucrats. This compares to a ratio of 5-1 in Cornwall back in just 2011.
The latest national average Church of England ratio is 3.1-1, that is just over three stipendiary priest posts for a single Church House bureaucrat. This countrywide average has been compiled by Save The Parish nationally from the latest published accounts of every diocese in the CoE.
The official 2023/24 budget document from the diocese makes it clear that administrative staff will rise: "As previously mentioned due to the Diocesan Plan for Change and Renewal being approved during 2023 we are needing to increase the central resources in order to deliver the vision included in that plan.”
Alongside the extra Church House posts, it has also been announced that there will be three new purely administrative Area Dean roles - that is, senior clergy who will administer the work of other more-junior clergy but with no specific pastoral or priestly duties of their own.
In total the diocese admits it will spend approximately £2m on Church House staff and administration this year while £3m has technically been set aside to pay clergy stipends. However, close examination of the diocesan budget shows that because of the large number of vacant parish priest posts the ACTUAL likely spend is projected too be a third less….or about £2m, roughly the same was on bureaucrats.
There are currently 15 Curates - trainee priests - in Cornwall but they are being cut to 12 this year, according to the Diocese. Curates are funded by central funds from the national Church of England.
The petition calling for a halt to these plans was started by Save The Parish supporter Sue McClaughry, appalled by both the effects of the On The Way restructuring plans and the high-handed manner in which it is being forced through by the diocese in Cornwall’s 12 deaneries. The petition, which is gaining more signatures daily, declares On The Way is “fundamentally flawed”.
“In many cases the plans will result in a reduction in clergy numbers, for example in one area there will be one priest overseeing 10 churches and three chapels,” the petition says. “… in another two members of the clergy, one of whom will not work on Sundays, will be responsible for 23 churches.”
The Save The Parish Cornwall analysis of the Diocese of Truro’s own records of actual stipendiary priest v Church House bureaucrat numbers illustrates how right she is.
ENDS
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