THE Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, who chairs the Triennial Funding Working Group (TFWG), introduced to the General Synod on the Friday the “ambitious financial package” agreed with the Archbishops’ Council.
A complete of £1.6 billion can be distributed from 2026 to 2028 — the most important distribution within the Church’s history, she said. This included £236 million available via bids within the Diocesan Investment Programme (DIP); a 30-per-cent increase in Lowest Income Communities (LInC) Funding to £133 million; and extra support of £200 million for dioceses, over a nine-year period. Most of the latter can be allocated consistent with population wealth, although some can be through the DIP.
Other spending plans include raising the stipend and, due to this fact, lifting the starting pension rate, to handle clergy well-being. Diocesan apportionment can be abolished, and the present funding areas covered by “Votes 1-5” on the Synod can be covered nationally, though a single ministry training fund would receive contributions from dioceses on a means-tested basis.
This was an “integrated whole”, Bishop Mullally said, which got here “with a word of caution concerning the dangers of well-intended amendments which could have outcomes which we may not expect or may not work”.
The First Church Estates Commissioner, Alan Smith, said that the Church Commissioners sought to make “the utmost sustainable distribution to the support the Church’s mission. We don’t hold back.” But this needed to be consistent with principles of intergenerational equity, acknowledging the “uncertain geopolitical times with lower returns forecast for a long time ahead”. A reserved buffer of £50 million was in place for this.
Dr John Mason (Chester) asked for more information concerning the Church Commissioners’ “risk appetite”.
Mr Smith said that, as an in-perpetuity fund, the Commissioners were tasked with ensuring that their money lasted “until the day before Jesus returns. . . Therein lies the complexity of the calculation.” Assets needed to grow to give you the option to cover inflation.
The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, suggested that, “on current long-term trends, unless he really speeds up, there won’t be a Church of England when Lord Saviour returns. There will just be big fat bank balance. Should we not be investing much more in order that we will grow and begin generating income in other ways?”
Mr Smith argued that this was “exactly what this settlement does”. Of the £1.6 billion, he challenged Bishop North: “You go and find anywhere where anyone has injected that level of increased investment.”
Bishop Mullally concurred that “hard decisions” had needed to be made. The TFWG had heard funding bids in excess of £2 billion when only £1.6 billion was available. She also mentioned savings targets for the Bishops’ and Archbishops’ costs, currently set at £146 million, but that they had been tasked with saving five per cent by 2028 and ten per cent by 2031.
The Revd Jonathan Macy (Southwark) raised the topic of churches in wealthy dioceses that didn’t receive LInC money.
The chair of the Finance Committee, Carl Hughes (Southwark), said that there have been no plans to review this formula, but he encouraged generosity inside dioceses.
Carolyn Graham (Guildford) asked whether the TFWG was satisfied that the abolition of apportionment would cover the associated fee of the rise in stipends, which can be borne by dioceses, in all cases.
Mr Hughes said that dioceses as an entire can be £12 million higher off, but that this level varied by diocese, and 7 can be “barely worse off”. When it got here to pensions, he said, a latest ordinand aged 26 and attributable to retire at 68 would have a pension that was 60 per cent higher under the brand new rules: £23,000 plus a lump sum of £70,000. A parish priest who had joined the pension scheme on the age of 28 in 2010 would have £22,000 plus a sum of £66,700.
Bishop Mullally was grateful for the “continued generosity and faithfulness of 1000’s of individuals in parishes and worshipping communities that provide the vast majority of the funding and resources needed to live out our shared calling”.
Mr Hughes said that, having giving advisers in all but one diocese had had a “very significant impact on the extent of giving”.
The Revd Alex Frost (Blackburn) was concerned concerning the amount of cash “sloshing around”. He challenged bishops to “visit among the urban parishes that we’re a part of and representing. We get nothing. I’ll leave it at that.” He desired to speak for “estate ministry where it’s a battle daily. We need to beg, borrow, not steal. But sometimes it feels we want to go there.”
Sarah Tupling (Deaf Anglicans) emphasised the necessity to train more deaf clergy, of whom, she said, there have been just three.
The Chair of the Church of England Pensions Board, Clive Mather, confirmed that there was a commitment to recompensating, through backdating, those clergy disadvantaged by having retired since 2021, during a period of high inflation.
Canon Judith Maltby (Universities and TEIs) reported that the reduction within the racial- and social-justice budget had “hit very hard” on the recent conference on racial justice and theological education.
Bishop Mullally reflected that the work of the TFWG had began too late, in October. She reiterated that the racial-justice funding for 2023-25 had been a “one-off payment”, and that the £12 million allocated was greater than had been envisaged; but communications “might have been higher”.
Mary Durlacher (Chelmsford) made a plea for areas of rural poverty.
Mr Hughes said that this had been the topic of “extensive discussion” inside the SMMIB and that, along with LInC, funding, “quite a considerable amount” of DIP grants had gone to rural projects. “We are working with a variety of archdeacons to be certain that now we have a full understanding of the needs of rural parishes.”
Jeanette Appleton (St Edmundsbury & Ipswich) emphasised that “people who find themselves deaf will inform you they will not be disabled.”
THE Synod welcomed the spending plans on Saturday. Introducing the controversy, Bishop Mullally said that the Church Commissioners had made a “huge step up” of their distributions.
The Revd Lesley Jones (Durham) spoke as a parish priest in Jarrow — among the many 4 per cent of poorest parishes and a recipient of LInC. She recalled that the Jarrow March of 1936 had received “little response” at 10 Downing Street on the time, but Sir John Jarvis, a committed, devout Christian, who was then MP for Guildford, had brought “hope, opportunity, work, and amenities” to Jarrow.
Sam Atkins/Church TimesThe Revd Lesley Jones (Durham) speaks as a parish priest in Jarrow, among the many 4 per cent of poorest parishes and a recipient of LINC
She had met his granddaughter in St Paul’s, Jarrow. “As a results of [Sir John’s] motion, there are generations living in south Tyneside who wouldn’t have been there. had he not been so deeply moved by their plight,” Ms Jones said.
But there have been still many individuals and churches in South Tyneside struggling to pay their way. “We watch as churches around us go into decline and shut, not due to a scarcity of religion or motion or compassion and care, but because there may be little or no money locally.”
The Revd Dr Christopher Landau (Lichfield), director of ReSource for Anglican Renewal Ministries, voiced his “profound concern” concerning the health and viability of full-time residential training. He referred to answers to written Synod questions showing that the proportion of ordinands on this path had fallen from 46 per cent in 2014 to simply 20 per cent in 2024. Half the relevant TEIs had an intake of just five students or fewer in the present academic 12 months. These colleges faced a “stark and existential challenge”, he said. He urged the Synod not “wash its hands of the longer term of residential training if we would like to be a Church marked by depth of theological and spiritual renewal”.
Clare Williams (Norwich) welcomed the commitment to addressing clergy well-being through a financial response, but warned that financial hardship could produce other challenges, including mental-health crises. There was a must standardise support in mental health and counselling, she said.
The Revd Clair Jaquiss (Chester) told the story of a retired priest, Fr Robert, who was nearly 90 and continued to help in parish ministry. Ten years ago, he had realised that the current house provided by the Pensions Board for him and his wife wouldn’t be suitable as they aged. They had no family, but a support network of local friends.
Properties in other, distant parts of the country had been offered. Every property that he and his archdeacon had suggested had been rejected. The housing team had requested an occupational-therapy assessment, which concluded that his house was unsuitable, but this had been lost. Another assessment had come to the identical conclusion, but, at this point, latest properties were not being bought. Alterations to the couple’s house had been suggested, together with aids and adaptations. Another assessment had been suggested. In the mean time, Fr Robert had develop into the carer for his wife. He had experienced, Ms Jaquiss said, “ten years of stress and failure. This isn’t justice or compassion for a faithful servant.”
The Revd Robert Sutherland (Leeds) spoke as a member of the estates-evangelism task group and the vicar of a parish within the 3.5 per cent most deprived within the country. From the surface, his parishioners were thought to be the “undeserving poor” — but. from the within, they were “generous, caring, hard-working, gifted”. His heart had been “strangely warmed” by news of the rise in LInC, but there was a necessity for accountability and transparency, he said. “We will not be the Church for the poor, however the Church of the poor, ministering together.”
Julie Dziegel (Oxford) said that about 70 per cent of diocesan budgets were stipends and costs including pension contributions. Under the proposals to extend the stipend, these costs would increase “substantially”. Without central help, this could be unaffordable for dioceses, she said, “but, with central help, dioceses have still lost control of the overwhelming majority of their budgets.
“The results of these spending plans is that every one dioceses have develop into depending on central funding over which they don’t have any control. This is mistaken. If we would like a centrally controlled Church, which I don’t think we do, . . . we should always debate the concept properly and make a call. We must not sleep-walk into centralisation achieved by control of cash.” She can be voting against the motion.
Nic Tall (Bath & Wells) moved a “friendly” amendment requesting that 75 per cent of the £236 million allocated to the Diocesan Investment Programme be allocated on to diocesan stipend funds (DSFs). The impression of “rude health” given within the spending plans didn’t connect with the truth that he saw within the diocese. Many dioceses were selling off clergy houses, using capital as revenue “simply to make ends meet”. Putting money directly into DSFs would “relieve pressure across the entire system, a rising tide lifting all boats”. Three diocesan secretaries had told him that the general package wouldn’t leave them higher off.
Bishop Mullally warned of “unintended consequences” of the amendment. The TFWG had developed “rigorously costed plans which balance a full range of obligations and priorities”. Within the plans for the subsequent triennium, there was direct formula funding, including a rise in LInC and extra support for dioceses. A big proportion of DIP for 2024 to 2026 funding had already been earmarked in principle. If the amendment was passed, dioceses would lose the funding they were expecting. “While it might look straightforward to exchange one variety of funding for one more, the distribution framework is way more complicated, and a change like this could have far-reaching consequences for the spending plans overall.”
She told the Synod: “We cannot pick and pick from the menu. This is an integrated package and unravelling it at this late stage may have unintended consequences for the Church, dioceses, parishes, and mission.”
The Revd Nicki Pennington (Carlisle) supported the amendment. As a priest serving in a post-industrial community, she was concerned that that latest initiatives can be favoured over existing work that was less visible. Much was spent on bidding, reporting, and administration.
James Wilson (Manchester) spoke of his ten-year experience as an area councillor, when he had noticed that many good local charities lost out to greater organisations when it got here to securing contracts, because they weren’t good at writing bids. “I fear now we have imported bad habits from the general public sector into the Church.” The NCIs didn’t have a “monopoly on wisdom . . The best people to choose the right way to invest for mission are the people in your diocese, whether or not they’ve the time or skills to write down good funding bids.”
The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, a member of Commissioners’ Assets Committee, warned that the proposal to pay money straight into DSFs would require more liquidity than the present calculations assumed. Before the Synod was a “rigorously prepared package with such excellent news in it . . . We simply cannot start pulling away at one or two strands, because we are going to find that, pretty quickly, the entire package will begin to unravel.”
The Revd Mark Wallace (Guildford), the Area Dean of Woking, said that the Council — famous for “the largest bankruptcy in Britain” — owed £2 billion. “I just wish to caution us against the thought that folks on the bottom all the time know best, because, if the people on the bottom will not be experts in what they’re doing, in the event that they will not be well-versed in mission and ministry, they may not spend money that is shipped to them correctly and well.”
Prebendary Rosie Austin (Exeter) had arrived in small deep-rural parishes ten years ago stuffed with energy with plans for eight churches. In the mean time, she had learned that God “delighted within the small, the unexpected, the delicate, and the broken”, and he or she had given up on “extravagant mission plans”. But when churches were “nurtured in love, prayer, and discipleship, surprising fruit emerges”, she found. The SMMIB model was “not well suited to the small, surprising, the delicate”. Green shoots weren’t being nurtured.
The Archdeacon of Leeds, the Ven. Paul Ayers (Leeds), challenged the rhetoric of the controversy. SMMIB projects were “designed locally”, he insisted. Aims were set and measured. SDF funding that was used for church-planting was “one in all the important keys used to rescue and support churches in poorer areas”. They weren’t big and flashy, but focused on the neediest parts of the country, served by local clergy. There were non-SDF-funded churches that would “do with little bit of reporting and accountability that SMMIB projects have”. When people asked for more priests, he desired to ask, “When did you last send one out of your church?”
The amendment was lost in all Houses: Bishops 25-3, with one recorded abstention; Clergy 97-58, with eight recorded abstentions; and Laity 89-68, with 12 recorded abstentions.
The Revd Martin Poole (Chichester) moved an amendment requesting that racial and disability justice be allocated separate budgets, putting the previous at £20 million and the latter at £5.7 million. In February, the Synod had voted for resourcing racial-justice work, and yet there was a proposal to scale back funding to £12 million and an expectation that two marginalised groups would “fight it out”.
The report Behind the Stained Glass had pointed to a niche between what the Church said that it wanted to attain and lived experience, and this was exemplified by the shortage of funding. Lord Boateng had held up on the Synod an extended list of guarantees on racial justice previously made and never fulfilled. “Don’t perpetuate that scandal by doing the identical,” he said.
Daniel Matovu (Oxford) suggested that the leadership of the Church “cares little, at the least for racial and disability justice”. In February, the Synod had voted overwhelmingly to support the work of racial justice in a motion accompanied by a paper proposing that funding be maintained at £20 million for the subsequent triennium. “It looks as if racial and disability justice have been asked to share the leftovers at the underside of the basket,” he said. “We don’t want your words of pity, your lament, your commitments. We are uninterested in your approval of recommendations and motions without adequate resources to take effective motion.”
The Revd Dr Charlie Baczyk-Bell (Southwark) said that the Synod needed to “do higher in listening to the best way that our decisions and the explanations behind them are received by those to whom they most apply”. The slave trade, injustice, discrimination, and prejudice remained “a part of the material of our Church, and it’s our stated responsibility to attempt to repair that fabric. . . This is a sacrifice, but is as nothing in comparison with the debt that we owe.”
The Revd Dr Ian Paul (Southwell & Nottingham) lamented assumptions being made within the speeches thus far, warning that, up to now, the Synod had “had an urgency about a problem, made a last-minute decision, tinkered with detailed working . . . and, consequently, had seriously damaging unintended consequences”.
Busola Sodeinde (London), a Church Commissioner, said that the concerns expressed were “deeply valid”, but that the funding had been intended as a one-off time-limited “kick start”, not a sustained source of monetary support. There were “many competing demands” to be heard, but she would “wholeheartedly welcome further financial investment, should it develop into available”.
Fiona MacMillan (London), a member of the Committee for Ministry of and Among Deaf and Disabled People and the national Disability Task Group, supported the amendment. She warned that there was “little or no money going to disability work in dioceses”. It was not a priority in an era of deficits.
The amendment was lost, falling in two Houses: Bishops 7-13, with three recorded abstentions; Clergy 89-52, with 18 recorded abstentions; and Laity 75-80, with 12 recorded abstentions.
The Revd Dr Sean Doherty (Universities and TEIs) welcomed the Ministry Training Fund. Having a centralised administration would cut back the burden on dioceses, in order that they weren’t subject to a limit for training costs and decisions about pathways might be based purely on what was right for the candidate. He also welcomed plans to enhance maintenance grants, which can be linked to the Living Wage.
Canon Alice Kemp (Bristol) asked for funding streams to be connected to the work of the Disability Task Group.
The Acting Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Revd Richard Atkinson, the Bishop of Bedford, said that disability funding had been released only within the last 12 months of the triennium, hence the underspend, but that just about all the cash can be utilized by the top of this triennium.
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