THE allocation of seats for every diocese within the synodical elections later this 12 months was approved by the General Synod on the Wednesday.
Introducing the controversy, Nic Tall (Bath & Wells), a member of the Business Committee, explained that the brand new allocation would keep overall numbers of clergy and laity the identical, at 200 each, and maintain the normal 70:30 split for the Provinces of Canterbury and York respectively (though the Northern Province was actually 25 per cent of the national electoral rolls).
Because of shifting populations on electoral rolls, 14 dioceses would have changes to their allocation inside this, he said.
Canon Joyce Jones (Leeds) welcomed the slight over-representation for the Northern Province, which, she said, was often excluded from national church life.
Bob Chambers (Chichester) welcomed a slight decrease within the disparity between the best- and worst-represented dioceses by population in the brand new allocation, which might help to deal with a democratic deficit. He said that, in his experience, this may very well be significantly worse in some deanery synods.
Carl Hughes (Archbishops’ Council) spoke of the scale and value of the Synod, which, he said, was last adjusted in 2005. Since 2014, electoral rolls had plummeted by 28 per cent, and the variety of clergy electors had also fallen by 14 per cent. In the subsequent quinquennium, the Archbishops’ Council could consider reducing the general size of the Synod, on condition that it was representing a smaller Church.
The Revd Charlie Skrine (London) was astonished that the diocesan allocation for London had gone up, despite electoral rolls’ falling. He was “terrified” about what this implied for the remainder of the Church, and pleaded for a concentrate on growth over the subsequent quinquennium.
Fiona MacMillan (London) asked whether proportionality may be considered with regard to how large churches could dominate deanery synods, leaving the voices of the less powerful to be less heard. Could deanery-synod representation rules be re-examined to correct for this, she asked.
The Revd Catherine Shelley (Leeds) said that her diocese would lose a clergy seat on the Synod. There were many vacancies in her diocese, which meant that, if the Synod figures were based on those currently in post moderately than the budgeted-for clergy numbers, the diocese was subsequently underrepresented.
The motion was carried.
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