A SEVEN-PER-CENT increase within the National Minimum Stipend (NMS), set to return into effect in April, has been welcomed by the trade union Unite.
The increase, agreed by the Archbishops’ Council, acting because the Central Stipends Authority (CSA), will see the minimum stipend jump from £26,134 to £28,670.
Last July, the CSA announced a five-per-cent increase for 2024. The greater uplift to seven per cent has been made possible because dioceses, which can have to fund the stipends, need pay less into the Church of England pensions scheme. In December, the Pensions Board announced a drop within the contribution rate by three percentage points from April this yr: to 25 per cent of the previous yr’s National Minimum Stipend.
The Archbishops’ Council has also agreed a seven-per-cent increase within the National Stipend Benchmark to £30,638. This is the sum that the Council recommends that dioceses pay.
This week, Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, paid tribute to members of the Church of England Clergy & Employee Advocates (CEECA) — a part of the union’s wider faith staff’ branch. Last yr, CEECA was invited for the primary time to submit proposals to the Church of England’s Remuneration and Conditions of Service Committee (RACSC), which advises the Archbishops’ Council on increases in stipends.
It called for a rise of 9.5 per cent, citing “significantly higher food costs, combined with current high energy prices that show no sign of abating”, and warning of “chronic financial anxiety and hardship amongst clergy and their families” (News, 9 June 2023).
Ms Graham said: “The dedication and commitment of Unite’s CEECA activists on behalf of their members has moved the Church into providing this much-needed increase to the stipend. However, financial hardship and an absence of support in ministry remain an actual concern for CEECA members. Unite’s fight to enhance financial well-being and dealing conditions for Church of England clergy will proceed.”
The Team Vicar of Horsham, the Revd Sam Maginnis, who’s the national chair of CEECA (Comment, 16 June 2023), said that the rise would “go some technique to be sure that clergy receive relief from the financial hardships and the stress many are coping with, and may effectively serve their local communities.”
A review in 2021 noted that the CSA had not been uprating the stipend by the Retail Price Index, despite an agreement by the General Synod, within the wake of the 2001 remuneration report Generosity and Sacrifice, that such a policy must be followed (News, 23 November 2001; 18 February 2022). In 2012, it was calculated that the benchmark was lower in real terms against RPI than it was before Generosity and Sacrifice.
The 2021 review advisable that the NMS must be linked as a substitute to the Consumer Prices Index including owner-occupiers’ housing costs — the Government’s preferred measure of inflation.
In a letter sent to diocesan secretaries last month, Kevin Norris, secretary of the RACSC, reported that the Archbishops’ Council had noted that, as a way to “fully meet up with inflation”, the 2023 NMS would must be increase by 11.3 per cent, “which it recognised could be unaffordable for dioceses”.
But, he wrote: “RACSC and the Council are concerned concerning the impact on clergy wellbeing and morale of stipends having fallen behind inflation and consider that the reduction within the pensions contribution rate provides a chance for some catch up. We noted that one effect of the NMS not maintaining with inflation lately was to cut back the worth in real terms of the starting pension upon retirement. A seven per cent per cent increase within the NMS would go a way towards ensuring that starting pensions keep pace with the price of living.”
His letter expressed a hope that the move would “encourage you to look again at the extent of your Diocesan Basic Stipend for 2024/25, although we remain aware of the acute financial pressures that many dioceses face”.
Most of the dioceses who contributed to the 2021 review argued that the next level of stipend wouldn’t be inexpensive. Many “expressed concern concerning the high level of the present contribution rate to clergy pensions (for pensions post 1998): almost 40 per cent of the National Minimum Stipend including deficit-recovery contributions.”
The rate of contribution has since been reduced, in response to statutory valuations of the pensions scheme — to 36 per cent in 2022 and to twenty-eight per cent from 2023, after the deficit, present from the inception of the scheme in 1998, was cleared (News, 18 February 2022).
“The improvement within the scheme’s funding position has resulted from strong investment returns and changes in financial market conditions, principally the rise in rates of interest,” the CEO of the Pensions Board, John Ball, said this week. “Once the scheme had moved to a fully-funded position, deficit payments, which prior to April 2022 accounted for around a sixth of the contribution rate, were now not required.”
The ONS reports that annual growth in regular earnings was 7.3 per cent in August to October 2023 — 1.3 per cent in real terms adjusted for inflation.
THE latest increase within the stipend comes against the background of a long-running debate concerning the adequacy and affordability of clergy remuneration. The 2021 review, which concluded that the stipend was “adequate for many clergy and is mostly an appropriate level of remuneration”, was the primary for 20 years. That earlier review, Generosity and Sacrifice, advisable a pay rise of 18 per cent to £20,000, with the brand new figure based on a primary school headteacher’s salary. It followed a survey of all 10,000 clergy — to which two-thirds responded — which found that just 13 per cent believed the extent of stipend (roughly £17,000) was adequate.
It was a suggestion that went unmet: the 2021 review observed that a number of the aspirations of its predecessor “proved unaffordable or perhaps unrealistic . . . there’s a must avoid overpromising”.
The present salary range for primary-school heads (outside London) is £53,380 to £131,056, out of which they need to pay for housing costs.
Among the underpinning principles of the 2021 review were that “the strong emphasis on vocation implies that secular notions of reward don’t apply in the identical way, as clergy are usually not primarily motivated by financial considerations”, but that terms and conditions should “enable clergy to flourish of their ministry without undue financial anxiety or hardship”.
A survey accomplished by 3700 clergy found that 62 per cent reported “living comfortably” or “doing all right”, but 13 per cent were finding it quite or very difficult to administer and 25 per cent were “just getting by”. Those finding it difficult were more more likely to be people who had two or more children and no additional household income, clergy with disabilities, and UKME clergy.
Rather than a stipend rise across the board, the review advisable that “additional targeted support must be provided for those clergy in a diocese who’re experiencing particular financial hardship, together with greater availability of monetary education, signposting, and empowerment”.
The cost of living increased sharply across the UK within the years following the review. The annual rate of inflation reached 11.1 per cent in October 2022, a 41-year high, before easing. Between December 2021 and December 2023 food prices rose by 26.2 per cent.
The latest Central Stipends Authority report noted: “High levels of inflation and the price of living crisis pose a challenge for the CSA in meeting the aspiration set out within the review of maintaining the true value of the package over time, especially because the stipends are largely funded by the generous giving of parishes and laity who’re facing the challenges posed by current economic conditions.”
