A SUGGESTION that a “big stick” be deployed by the Archbishops’ Council to make sure that the Lowest Income Communities funding (LINC) reaches the poor parishes for which it was intended was heard by the General Synod on Tuesday.
Delivering an update on the work of the diocesan funds review, the chair of the finance committee of the Archbishops’ Council, Carl Hughes, reported that only two-thirds of LINC funding was reaching parishes within the 25 per cent most deprived areas.
This was something that he felt “very strongly about”, he said, outlining that a “light-touch” reporting framework was proposed for dioceses, to “improve transparency and accountability”.
In the following debate, speakers expressed concern in regards to the statistic and the sufficiency of the proposed approach. The Revd Jonathan Macy (Southwark), who chairs the National Estates Churches Network, suggested that the figure was “absolutely shocking. . . You speak of things which are ‘light touch’, and I get why, but would you think about with that light touch an additional option akin to an enormous picket follow make sure that money actually goes to where it needs to be going?”
Mr Hughes told Mr Macy that he found it “disturbing” that the whole was not reaching the poorest areas, and expressed hope that dioceses would hear what had been said. He told members: “I do know that everybody feels that there may be this huge weight of the centre of the church imposing its will across the Church. We don’t have any power in any respect. I cannot require a diocese to do X, Y, or Z.”
But he was “determined” to try to extend the quantity going to parishes “to the perfect of my ability”.
This was challenged by Canon Mark Miller (Durham), who said: “I feel there may be a stick. I serve in probably the most deprived parish in my diocese. . . You said you have got no power, but I feel your power is, unless this goes to the poorest parishes, you ain’t getting it next yr.”
Mr Hughes responded: “I feel that crucial thing for dioceses to listen to is that Synod takes this extremely seriously, because that allows me to be very clear to our diocesan colleagues that accountability for LINC funding is something that we’re going to be very fastidiously.”
LINC was established in 2017 as a part of the Renewal and Reform programme (News, 21 October 2016). Alongside Strategic Development Funding (SDF) it replaced Darlow Funding. It is allocated to dioceses based on the scale and average income of their populations, modified to reflect the proportion of the population with very low incomes. In 2023, £29 million was awarded to twenty-eight dioceses.
The 67 per cent going to the 25 per cent poorest areas reflects an improvement on the figure reported within the Chote review of SDF and LINC, which put the whole at 56 per cent, up from 35 per cent in 2017 (News, 11 March 2022). It reported that the quantity had risen from £12.5 million in 2017 to £19.2 million in 2020.
Dioceses reported that the funding was supporting no less than 1700 parishes, “and that lots of them wouldn’t have their current level stipendiary clergy without that support”. An average of £14,000 was allocated per parish supported.
A caveat was expressed that LINC “helped to sustain low in addition to prime quality ministry in poor parishes, given the issue of moving on or retraining relatively ineffective clergy”.
Most dioceses distributed the funding to their poorest parishes by formula through the parish share system, the report said. But some dioceses treated it “more as a part of general resources”.
In 2022, the diocese of Truro reported that it had used LINC to plug its operating budget deficit, and set out plans to redirect it to work in deprived communities, with half of the sum supporting stipends in these areas (News, 2 June 2023).
The diocesan funds review reports that probably the most deprived communities have 60-per-cent lower attendance and 40-per-cent lower ministry per capita compared with the least deprived (News, 31 January).
