FURTHER “disempowerment” of parishes by the National Church Institutions needs to be challenged by the Ecclesiastical Committee, a recent report from the think tank Civitas suggests.
Drawing substantially on criticisms offered by the Save the Parish movement, the report Restoring the Value of Parishes: The foundations of welfare, community and spiritual belonging in England argues that parishes have been deprived of power and assets, and are actually “subject to the diocese and the chief power of the Archbishops’ Council”. It gives for instance the 1976 Endowment and Glebe Measure, which provided for the transfer of glebe land from parishes to the diocese for the good thing about diocesan stipends funds (News, 19 November 1976).
The Measure aimed to deal with inequalities in deployment and payment of clergy. Other aspects included a drive to stop developers from making unscrupulous deals with PCCs, and a desire to administer land more strategically at diocesan level with a view to maximising returns. Among the recommendations recommend in the brand new report is a suggestion that the management of diocesan stipends funds be handed over to the Church Commissioners’ investment arm, with the “enhanced income” distributed back to dioceses in proportion to the worth of their DSF.
Calling for a “rethink” of parish share, the report concludes that “essentially the most effective way for dioceses to assist parishes could be to scale back numbers of administrative staff.” Save the Parish has calculated that, based on the combined expenditure figures of the 42 dioceses, 21 per cent goes towards “diocesan support, training and administration”. It is estimated that reducing the present variety of diocesan staff by even one quarter could pay for 1000 recent stipendiary priests in parishes.
When it involves the NCIs, the report says that Queen Anne’s Bounty (the scheme merged with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to form the Church Commissioners) “must remain faithful to the unique intention of the endowments by ensuring that mission projects work in support of parishes reasonably than against them”. The majority of strategic funding needs to be allocated to initiatives “which work either inside or in direct collaboration with the parish”. The Church Commissioners should “give more cash on to funding parish ministry” and “contribute to the upkeep of parish buildings”.
It recommends that, “if the Church continues to disempower parishes — because it appears to do within the July 2024 draft of the National Church Governance Measure — the Ecclesiastical Committee can and may challenge them” (News, 12 July). It expresses concern in regards to the Measure’s exclusion of PCCs from the definition of a “charity with a church ethos” within the clause that pertains to the charitable objects of the proposed recent “Church of England National Services”, warning that: “If the Measure goes ahead, it is probably going that these provisions shall be interpreted as excluding parish churches from receiving funds distributed by the Church Commissioners altogether.”
On Wednesday, a Church House spokesperson said that proposals to amend this section of the Measure had been received by the Revision Commission, which expects to present its work to the General Synod in February.
Asked in regards to the potential to deliver grants direct to parishes reasonably than to the “great bureaucratic system”, Carl Hughes, who chairs the Archbishops Council’s finance committee, told the General Synod in July that this is able to be an “administrative nightmare” (News, 12 July). Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment grants were expected to go to dioceses “after which to be applied in front-line mission and ministry, and we do clearly monitor that”.
Other recommendations within the report include using Church Commissioners’ land to construct almshouses (“a way more focused and direct type of charitable contribution than giving money away to external organisations”), and “loosening” regulations around weddings, in order that churches could charge market rates for couples and not using a connection to the parish. It draws on a proposal by the author and biologist Rupert Sheldrake to suggest that landowners could donate or sell a parcel of land to parish churches to expand the room for burials, provided that a “green burial” continues to be sought by many individuals.
The report, written by Esmé Partridge and launched on Wednesday, argues that the conditions are ripe for a renewal of the parish, which “could possibly be in a really perfect position to nurture and direct [a] renewed receptivity to the sacred, being a site not only of Christian faith but additionally the pre-Christian heritage of ancient yew trees and holy wells. If the Church desires to be more ‘relevant’, it should stop attempting to reinvent itself . . . and reasonably embrace its role as a bastion of sacred tradition in a postmodern world.”
A spokesperson for the Church of England said: “We don’t recognise the image painted by this report,” and referred to “the essential front line support dioceses provide to parishes across the country in every thing from safeguarding to finance”.
They continued: “Contrary to the image the report portrays, Church of England churches have seen notable growth within the last 12 months — with overall congregations passing 1,000,000 again in 2023 — a tribute to the faithfulness of clergy, parish volunteers and parishioners across England in sharing the excellent news of Jesus Christ and serving their communities.”
