Legal fees
Posted: 02 Nov 2006 @ 00:00
THE SYNOD voted down a proposed rise in the Church’s payments to diocesan
registrars, after hearing the argument that it was too low, because the formula
used to calculate it was unfair.
Tim Allen (St Edmundsbury & Ipswich) moved approval of
the Legal Officers (Annual Fees) Order 2004, after a recommendation from the
Fees Advisory Commission (FAC) that fees should be increased by the amount of
price inflation: 2.9 per cent. The sole issue for the Synod to consider, he
said, was whether price inflation (RPI) or the "marginally higher" cocktail of
price and earnings inflation (3.2 per cent) should be the measure by which the
calculation was made. Dioceses under great financial pressure should not be
obliged by an "inflexible, uniform law from the centre" to pay increases of
more than two percentage points above inflation.
The Vicar-General of York, Chancellor Thomas Coningsby,
said Synod had approved the mixed formula of RPI plus the average earnings
index every year since 1990, and the FAC had not justified abandoning this
formula. Synod should support the mixed formula and ask the FAC to bring back a
revised Order in February 2005.
Synod voted against the motion by 119 to 125.