THE extent of the General Synod’s ability to shape the spending of the Church Commissioners’ funds was explored during this week’s meeting in York.
During a debate on the spending plans for 2026 to 2028, drawn up by the Triennium Funding Working Group (TFWG), members were warned by the bishops that voting in favour of amendments would produce an “unravelling” with “unintended consequences”.
On Saturday, members gave final approval to the National Church Governance Measure, under which the General Synod will not have the facility to approve the budget of the body set to interchange the Archbishops’ Council: Church of England National Services (CENS). The budget was “properly a matter” for the CENS trustees, Synod was told, bringing the Church of England into line with best practice in charity governance.
The two debates, each of which included failed attempts to bring amendments, followed a review of the Church’s governance that warned of a widespread lack of clarity about “the extent to which [Synod] has (or must have) oversight of the NCIs’ work” (News, 7 July 2023).
The 2023 report of the National Church Governance Board suggested that the phrase “synodically-governed” was “unhelpful . . . because it supports the widespread misconception within the media that General Synod is the Church’s governing body, when this is just not the case.
“The General Synod sets the budget of just certainly one of the NCIs, elects board members to some but not all of them, receives annual reports from some but not all of them, and may pass motions ‘calling upon’ any of them to do things which it cannot necessarily implement. Neither is Synod the governance body for the NCIs; they’re registered charities subject to separate regulation of their governance (e.g. by the Charity Commission).”
Sam Atkins/Church TimesStephen Hogg (Leeds), who chairs the revision committee, presents the Measure
The report suggested that “serious consideration” be given to the reform of the Synod and synodical government generally.
The Governance Measure that was given final approval by the Synod on Saturday establishes CENS as a charity, incorporating the functions of the Archbishops’ Council. It requires CENS to organize a funding framework to send to the Church Commissioners, setting out its objectives and the way it proposes to satisfy them. It also requires CENS to put before the Synod a summary of the proposals for inclusion on this framework and to have “due regard” to the view expressed by Synod.
The accomplished framework should be returned to Synod, accompanied by an announcement setting out “how the view of the Synod has affected the framework”.
Although CENS must lay its budget before Synod, it doesn’t require the Synod to approve it, and the budget could also be laid out after the 12 months to which it relates has begun. The Measure establishes a everlasting Synodical Scrutiny Committee to “scrutinize national decisions taken by the NCIs” — a suggestion of the governance review, which identified a necessity for Synod to have “greater transparency around what decisions have been taken and the way” and warned of high levels of mistrust.
Presenting the Measure, Stephen Hogg (Leeds), who chairs the revision committee, said that it didn’t replicate the model of Synod approving the Archbishops’ Council’s budget, “because it is evident that it’s the trustees of the charity who’ve that obligation”. A majority of members of CENS could be Synod members, he reminded the chamber.
“No-one is looking for to diminish the correct involvement of Synod, but members do need to know there’s a somewhat fundamental principle of charity law at play in regards to the responsibility of the charity’s trustees,” he said.
Sam Atkins/Church TimesJulie Dziegiel (Oxford)
He urged the Synod not to duplicate “models that we all know are problematic. . . Synod could have all varieties of things they’d like to fund and the role of the trustees will often be to temper those expectations.”
An unsuccessful amendment was brought by the Revd Paul Benfield (Blackburn) which might have restored the requirement for Synod’s approval of the budget. “Does Synod need to have control of the funds of the Church of England or does it want to go away it to another person in order that Synod just becomes a talking shop?” he asked.
Adrian Greenwood (Southwark) said that, in his 25 years as a member, the budget had never been voted down. “Our job is to feed in at first and scrutinise at the tip, but allow them to make the choice,” he said.
Mr Benfield was supported by some lay members: Clive Scowen (London) said that it was “incredibly improbable” that the Synod would ever exercise its power to say “no” to the budget, “however the existence of the facility may be very necessary within the dynamic between Synod and CENS board as to how they work together.”
Julie Dziegiel (Oxford) identified that dioceses needed to get budgets approved by diocesan synods. There was, she suggested, a “not insignificant amount of economic expertise inside this Synod, which could be diluted”.
Echoing the governance review, Carl Hughes, chair of the Archbishops’ Council’s finance committee, lamented “the shortage of clarity across the Church as to who’s accountable for what. . . I believe Synod absolutely has an interest in understanding and seeing what’s within the Archbishops’ budget and the way that pertains to funding streams which were agreed, nevertheless it is the duty of trustees to find out in the event that they are satisfied with that budget.”
It was a “myth”, he said, that the Synod had up to now approved the Archbishops’ Council’s budget. “All you had agreed is votes on five expenditure items” — a reference to expenditure funded by diocesan apportionment, set to be abolished in the subsequent triennium.
On Monday, the Synod shall be asked to approve the Archbishops’ Council’s budget for 2026. It follows a debate last July, wherein members complained in regards to the format for debating the budget, which was described as “stilted” and “constrained”.
At the time, the Bishop in Europe, Dr Robert Innes, told members that he had felt “uneasy . . . that the Synod is just not scrutinising the operating budget of the Archbishops’ Council to the degree that I’d feel comfortable with” (News, 12 July 2024).
On Saturday, the Synod approved the spending plans set out for the subsequent triennium, after voting down amendments (News, 9 June).
Nic Tall (Bath and Wells) brought one requesting that 75 per cent of the £236 million allocated to the Diocesan Investment Programme be allocated on to Diocesan Stipend Funds.
The Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, who chaired the TFWG, warned: “We cannot pick and pick from the menu. This is an integrated package and unravelling it at this late stage could have unintended consequences for the Church, dioceses, parishes and mission.” This message was echoed by the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher.
Sam Atkins/Church TimesCarl Hughes, chair of the Archbishops’ Council’s finance committee
On Friday, the Synod had voted in favour of an motion amended by the Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Pete Wilcox, which welcomed the “greater level of stakeholder engagement” that had informed the spending plans for 2026-28 and called upon the Business Committee to “schedule early in the subsequent triennium a full debate that may enable Synod to precise its view on the approach to disbursing funding, including support for local stipendiary ministry”. During the talk, concerns a few financial crisis in dioceses and parishes were aired (News, 12 July).
The Synod has been advised in previous years about where decision-making power lies in terms of spending plans. In 2015, at first of the Renewal and Reform programme, which introduced Strategic Development Funding and entailed breaking with the Church Commissioners’ “famous intergenerational rule”, the then First Church Estates Commissioner, Sir Andreas Whittam Smith, told members that he had insisted on bringing the plans to them.
He said on the time: “As a matter of fact, the Church Commissioners have all of the legal powers they should make these decisions on their very own, but I don’t think that is true in these circumstances. I believe we must always go much further than the legal requirements.”
The Turnbull Report of 1995, which gave rise to the present governance structures, envisaged that the “National Council” — which became the Archbishops’ Council — would “prepare the budget for national Church responsibilities and present it to the General Synod for approval, setting it inside the wider context of an summary of the Church’s funds as an entire”.
