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VICARAGES and rectories are now valued as worth £16,420 a year to the parish clergy and their families. The average incumbent’s stipend, including the house, is judged to be the equivalent of earning more than £36,000 in secular employment.
The Church of England’s Central Stipends Authority (CSA) estimated the value of housing the clergy on the basis of a typical detached house worth £322,9881 in July last year.
To provide a mortgage for such a home would cost £23,901. Water charges and council tax would cost a further £1700. Maintenance came to £620 a year. Because the average family moves house every seven years, the CSA added the cost of moving house at £2740 a year.
It added the cost of insurance, and then deducted the amount that the owner of the house would receive as the cost of houses soared — £14,211 a year that the clergy would not get.
The result was a total of just over £15,000. It added tax at 22 per cent, and National Insurance at 9.4 per cent, to get a gross total of £21,887.
CSA then applied a 25-per-cent discount to reflect the lack of unfettered choice of where to live. The clergy “have concerns about the cost of housing themselves in retirement; the housing is probably larger than the clergy would choose for themselves, and attracts higher bills for heating; part of the house is used for work purposes, and is effectively not part of the home”. There was also “an expectation of constant availability”.
Since 1984, stipends, now at a national “benchmark” figure of £20,510, have grown faster than the Retail Price Index, but in 2005 they were 8.7 per cent less than they would have been if linked to average earnings. The national minimum stipend is £18,000. The CSA recommended that this should increase to £19,070 from April, and that the benchmark stipend rise to £20,980.
The stipends bill of £196.8 million is divided between the Church Commissioners, who will have provided £34.3 million for the year 2006-07; cathedrals (£0.3 million); dioceses and parishes (£145.5 million); the parish clergy themselves (fees of £15.8 million); and other local income (£0.8 million).
The CSA report is due to be presented to the Synod this month. |
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