THE General Synod has called on the Archbishops’ Council to commission a review of “what’s required to make sure [that] clergy will not be merely supplied with the bare minimum to survive, but supported in retirement with dignity and fairness”.
The request was a part of a non-public member’s motion from Canon James Blandford-Baker (Ely) on the Saturday afternoon, which, he said, belonged to “an enormous cloud of witnesses to injustice and in lots of cases poverty amongst retired clergy”.
Two thousand clergy had joined the Clergy Action Facebook Group, 700 had signed a letter to the Church Times, and 192 members had signed the motion, he said. He welcomed the proposals to enhance pensions set out within the national spending plans, including restoring the pension to two-thirds of the stipend. But there was a necessity for an independent review to make sure that “we never find yourself on this place again.”
There were “deep structural inquiries to face”, he said. In certainly one of his parishes, the perfect preacher was a clergy pensioner in his nineties. Canon Blandford-Baker was critical of the indisputable fact that pension calculations currently factored within the state pension, whose future was uncertain.
The review must also bear in mind the years spent in training and the breaks taken by some during their ministry. Most clergy were unable to take a position in property. Unlike the stipend, the pension didn’t account for housing need.
Some clergy were paying all the sum of their pension back to the Church through the clergy-housing retirement scheme (CHARM), he said. Some were unable to live near to children, grandchildren, or friends, or were “lost on some soulless recent estate disconnected from public transport and unable to access vital public services”.
Canon Blandford-Baker called for a pension “that gives dignity, not poverty”, and suggested that the present decline in ordinand numbers may very well be the “direct result” of the present “poor provision”.
The Revd Graham Kirk-Spriggs (Norwich) told the Synod: “There is not any way I’m ever going to afford a house. . . There is presumption in [the] pension scheme that you have got a stunning middle-class partner in a position to support you in retirement. What about those clergy that don’t have that support network?”
Ian Boothroyd (Southwell & Nottingham) challenged the concept the pension was generous. It was not a final-salary scheme, and the pensionable stipend was the national minimum stipend, not the stipend that the majority clergy were being paid. He highlighted those clergy who had retired after 2021, during a period of high inflation when the stipend was not lifted.
The Ven. Dr Adrian Youings (Bath & Wells) moved an amendment to thank the NCIs for his or her work on a “significant and immediate step towards correcting an historic injustice”. It called on the Church of England Pensions Board “specifically to offer some type of restitution for those already in receipt of a pension with post-2011 service”, and called for the excellent review.
Dr Youings described how, “day after day, clergy and their families have shared stories of pain, worry, and uncertainty around pensions and housing.” One cleric had said that his mother, a clergy widow, had a better pension than that forecast for him. One quarter of all Sunday services were taken by retired clergy, Dr Youings said. Many serving clergy had never checked out their pensions, and so had “no idea what was coming down the road”.
Canon Simon Talbott (Ely) drew attention to the clergy who had served in one other Church before the Church of England — a previous ministry not accounted for by the Pensions Board, he said.
The Revd Lis Goddard (London) was concerned concerning the inequity experienced by those that had a portfolio ministry, and for girls who might take house-for-duty posts as a way of serving part-time while caring for young children, and lacked access to the pension scheme. She had been told that it was “inconceivable for somebody to pay into scheme. But other skilled bodies manage it. . . These are individuals who keep our churches running.”
The Chair of the Church of England Pensions Board, Clive Mather, supporting the amendment, offered reassurances that a plan can be implemented to assist those that had served the Church after 2011, and those that had retired since 2021. He said, nevertheless, that retrospective work was “very, very difficult”, as there was a “mind-bending” set of individual calculations to be made. He thanked God for what had been made possible, but warned that “the further you go, the more you . . . risk increasing contributions, which is the one thing we seek to avoid.”
Nadine Daniel (Liverpool) had been a part of a “counter-cultural liberal Catholic church-plant” — St Margaret of Antioch, in Toxteth — since 2013. It had recommend eight ordinands, and the electoral roll had increased from 4 to 62. All this had been supported and enabled by retired clergy, she said, including the Revd Sister Norma Nelson CA, now in her nineties.
The Revd Dr Ian Paul (Southwell & Nottingham), who moved the unique private members’ motion that had preceded the commitment to improving clergy pensions, spoke of “persistence over a few years” and thanked colleagues within the NCIs. The Pensions Board’s chief executive, John Ball, had “taken the time and trouble” to read each story from the Clergy Pension Action Group. One person had written: “I not fear retirement.”
Dr Ian Johnston (Portsmouth) said that the National Institutions Measure of the Nineteen Nineties had “failed us in our oversight”. While he supported the brand new governance Measure, there was “more to do”, including changing Standing Orders to make sure that “we don’t get into this case again.” He lamented a “low interest in governance”. What was needed was as methodical approach.
The Chair of the Finance Committee, Carl Hughes (Southwark), was “delighted to have the option to announce material changes which might be inexpensive”.
The amendment was clearly carried. The amended motion was then carried 328-0 with three recorded abstentions. It read:
That this Synod:
a) Note the unanimous support given by this Synod in February 2024 to the Private Member’s Motion brought by the Revd Dr Ian Paul, calling for improvements in the extent of clergy pensions;
b) Thank the Pensions Board and the Archbishops’ Council for the proposals being brought before this Synod in GS 2402 Annex C, and endorse these proposals wholeheartedly as a major and immediate step towards correcting an historic injustice;
c) Note with gratitude the significantly improved funding position of the Church of England Funded Pension Scheme (CEFPS) which suggests that these changes will be made without requiring funding from elsewhere within the Church ecosystem;
d) Call on the Pensions Board to go further than the present proposals — specifically to offer some type of restitution for those already in receipt of a pension with post 2011 service as described in Paragraph 18 on Page 30 of GS 2402 Annex C;
e) Call on the Archbishops’ Council to commission a comprehensive, independent review of what is required to make sure that clergy and their dependents are supported in retirement with dignity and fairness — specifically in relation to each pension provision and housing. The review must be chaired by an independent lay person with a working group representing all relevant interests, and fascinating fully with clergy, clergy spouses, retired clergy and other stakeholders (including the Clergy Pension Action Group and the Retired Clergy Association). The review should initially report back to Synod inside 12 months.
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