CONCERNS in regards to the “huge power” enjoyed by the body set to switch the Archbishops’ Council were voiced in Parliament last week, during a gathering of the Ecclesiastical Committee.
Convened to think about the National Church Governance Measure, which is about to overhaul the National Church Institutions (NCIs), the Committee heard lengthy criticism by Danny Kruger, the MP for East Wiltshire who defected from the Conservatives to Reform last month. His concerns were focused on Church of England National Services (CENS), a recent charity replacing the Archbishops’ Council, that might be accountable for distributing funds allocated by the Church Commissioners.
The charitable objectives of CENS are: “To advance the Christian religion in accordance with the religion and practice of the Church of England, particularly by furthering, enabling, enhancing and co-ordinating its work and mission”, and “to advance every other charitable purposes that are ancillary to the aim referred to in paragraph”. The Commissioners will determine the quantity to pay from their general fund to CENS to permit it to “properly exercise its functions”.
CENS objectives were “vague”, Mr Kruger said. “At the center of my anxiety is that the measure . . . essentially allows CENS to ask for money from the Church Commissioners. . . There is a few discretion in regards to the overall amount [the Commissioners] pays . . . [but] it suggests there is no such thing as a room for applying a wider discretion over the actual purpose of the cash.”
The Measure sets out certain constraints under which CENS will operate. It must undergo the Church Commissioners a framework setting out its objectives for the funding period, and the way it proposes to satisfy them. This must include a certificate confirming “the extent to which the quantity paid by the Commissioners to CENS within the preceding yr was utilized in accordance with the framework for the funding period concerned and an announcement of the impact”.
CENS must also lay before the General Synod a summary of the proposals for inclusion within the framework, and have “due regard to the view expressed by the Synod . . . conscientiously bearing in mind the view expressed by Synod and giving it due weight”. It must lay its budget before the Synod “as soon as reasonably practicable after it has been prepared”. This represents a change from the present Measure, under which the Synod approves the budget — something that provoked concern during Synod debates this summer (News, 18 July).
There was no requirement for CENS to “adapt” its framework in response to the General Synod’s view, Mr Kruger said. “It is required to offer a certificate, but it surely is circular: the certificate merely confirms compliance by CENS with its own plans. It marks its own homework.”
Mr Kruger also raised concerns about one in every of the funding streams through which the Church Commissioners will make payments to CENS. Under the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure 2018, grants will be made to the Archbishops’ Council “for the needs of the Council’s functions”. This will apply to CENS, under the Measure.
In recent years, Synod members have raised concerns (Letters, 7 March) in regards to the sums being allocated via this stream: £38 million in 2023, compared with £33.5 million under the 1998 Measure: a stream serving “provision for cure of souls in parishes where help most required”. A complete of £81.4 million was allocated under each streams.
Last week, Mr Kruger told the Committee that he feared that the 2018 Measure was being abused. He said: “It wasn’t speculated to be the fundamental funding stream for the Church but it surely has change into so: very widely drawn spending criteria that allow all varieties of things that go way beyond what the Church Commissioners were originally set as much as do.”
In February, Carl Hughes, who chairs the Archbishops’ Council finance committee, agreed that more cash was being spent under the Measure than had been expected, but said that this was resulting from the instructions of the Synod, which had approved spending on initiatives resembling racial justice and net zero (News, 21 February).
Under the National Church Governance Measure, many of the non-investment functions of the Church Commissioners might be transferred to CENS, including the functions of the Mission and Pastoral Adjudication Committee, which rules on pastoral reorganisation, including church closures. Mr Kruger expressed concern that an “unaccountable bureaucracy” would hold this power.
He praised the revision of the Measure to incorporate an amendment from Fr Marcus Walker, who chairs the Save the Parish movement, under which CENS may have to have “particular regard to creating additional provision for the cure of souls” within the poorest parishes in England. But, Mr Kruger warned, this “feels unenforceable . . . a nod to a good principle with no actual teeth”.
He said: “There should be proper checks and balances between these quite different functions [the Church Commissioners, CENS, Parliament]. What is being done is an try and smooth over everywhere in the tensions . . . within the interests of rationalisation and simplification. And the actual result’s going to be huge power held within the hands of a recent charity which is unaccountable to Parliament or to Synod, to do what it likes.”
He would vote against the Measure, he said.
Defence of the Measure emphasised the charitable law under which CENS would operate. Sir David Lidington, a former Lord Chancellor who chaired the National Governance Reform project board, told the Committee: “We couldn’t phrase laws in a way that may give General Synod or anyone else the appropriate to override what can be the obligation of charity trustees, but we accepted the purpose that the Synod needed to give you the chance to have an influence and help shape the deliberations of the trustees, and that’s the reason the ‘due regard’ phrase is in there.”
He drew attention to the “formal scrutiny mechanisms” within the Measure. These include the establishment of a Synodical Scrutiny Committee, whose responsibilities will include a five-yearly review of CENS’ exercise of its grant-making power.
In addition, the Synod may, by a resolution supported by not less than 100 members, convene a “committee of inquiry” to conduct an inquiry right into a National Institution where it has “grave concern that the Institution has suffered a loss of cash or assets or damage to its repute”.
Sir Robert Buckland, the Third Church Estates Commissioner — whose function might be abolished under the brand new Measure — also offered a strong defence, emphasising the continuity with previous structures.
Both the Church Commissioners and CENS were subject to charity law and their very own fiduciary duties, he said. “If anything, there may be more accountability in consequence of the framework that’s being arrange. . . The concept that one in every of the bodies of the Church of England can go off on a frolic of its own and begin spending money in a way that may be wholly inconsistent with the mission is misconceived.”
The Mission and Pastoral Adjudication Committee would remain an “arms-length body”, and can be chaired by someone independently appointed by the King, versus the Archbishop of Canterbury, as is currently the case.
Delaying reform meant “putting more cost” on the NCIS in a way that didn’t serve the laity, Sir Robert said. “I feel, having thought in regards to the matter very rigorously, and after all offered myself up as a sacrifice, when you like, that the transition is something we will manage well.”
Among parliamentarians voicing concern was Lord Lisvane, who referred to the three years that he had served on the Parliamentary Delegated Powers Committee. “Were this a Government Bill, I feel that committee would go into carnivore mode,” he said. “These are really quite extensive powers, with relatively limited constraint on them it seems, and it’s what drafters are at all times told to avoid: making provisions which permit or expect a body to drag itself up by it own boot straps.”
Baroness Eaton expressed concern about “where accountability sits for safeguarding in the brand new arrangements”.
The director of the National Church Governance Programme, Stephanie Harrison, said that she was unable to be drawn on this, because the means of establishing independent safeguarding at a national level was happening in parallel with the reform of governance.
Championing the Measure, Sir David warned: “We are left with a established order that’s dysfunctional. . . Staff who waste far an excessive amount of time in the intervening time serving umpteen committees where the Church keep referring things from one body to a different, and no one will take a choice.”
As chairman of the project board, he had been “frankly shocked” at “the degrees of mistrust that there have been between the several institutions and members of those institutions”. The “overriding objective” of the reforms was, he said, “to attempt to amend the executive arrangements of the Church of England in such a way as can be conducive to making a culture of much greater trust and mutual confidence and co-operation”, with a concentrate on accountability.
The lack of trust had led him to conclude “that we’d like not simply to reframe and alter the facility of the Archbishops’ Council, but expressly to abolish the Archbishops’ Council because it currently exists, and to switch it with something different. It is stuffed with very well-meaning and hardworking people; it was arrange with the perfect of intentions. It has not worked.”
In addition to Synod members expressing their concerns to him, he had been told by members of the House of Bishops that “they really don’t have much faith within the General Synod.”
The Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Revd Andrew Watson, who’s the episcopal lead on governance reform, emphasised that the proposals had been developed over five years, with greater than 400 amendments considered, and had the “very unusual” near-unanimous support of the Synod. The Measure offered “greater assurance” to the Church Commissioners in regards to the use of funds, and “increased provision” for detailed questioning of the NCIs by the Synod.
The part played by the brand new Second Church Estates Commissioner remained unchanged, and entailed being answerable to Parliament for the work of the entire NCIs.
At the conclusion of the session, he urged the Committee to offer “much greater clarity about what really is fallacious with it. It appears to be there have been so many criticisms thrown from so many places, a few of them I’d should say based on a misunderstanding of what we’re doing.” He was, he said, “anxious that the perfect goes to be the enemy of the nice”.
The Committee was unable to vote on the Measure owing to the absence of the Second Church Estates Commissioner, Marsha de Cordova MP, on the conclusion of the session, which had exceeded the allotted time. It will now sit in private to think about its deliberations.
