THE Church of England Pensions Board plans to encourage the clergy to become landlords, in a move aimed at resolving the housing crisis for many of its future pensioners.

The Board has been in discussions with three mortgage companies to get preferential rates for the clergy. A booklet to be published in the next two months will explain to the clergy how they can get on the property ladder.

“They would be able to approach the providers earlier in their ministry, and have access to mortgages at a slightly preferential rate to that which they would get just by going down the High Street,” said Shaun Farrell, secretary of the Pensions Board, on Wednesday. “They could let out their houses while they were working, and would not need to come to us at the end of their ministry for help with housing.”

But Mr Farrell said that this would not be a substitute for the Church’s Housing Assistance for the Retired Ministry scheme (CHARM). The scheme has been criticised for trapping clerics in their first retirement home, after leaving them with too little equity to be able to move Letters, 8 22 29 April

CHARM will be under discussion at a meeting of the Inter-Diocesan Finance Forum with Mr Farrell next Tuesday.

The scheme is currently lending £332.6 million on more than 2800 properties. When a home in the scheme is sold, the Commissioners take back the same proportion of equity that they lent.

“The scheme made sense in the past, when interest rates were high and the property market was flat. But now that interest rates are around five per cent, and property values are increasing, it does not make sense,” said David Kemp, secretary of Canterbury diocese, on Wednesday.

The Commissioners say that they have a duty to maximise their returns for the good of the whole Church. In their latest annual report, they show, for instance, that they gave £2.1 million to Durham diocese for stipends support and parish mission last year. But Mr Kemp said: “If I was a clergy pensioner, I would feel I was subsidising Durham.”

He said that the issue would be “raised at the meeting, but it will not be settled. It will take a lot of time to unpick this. The Church Commissioners are not going to want to lose their golden goose.”

• The Commissioners’ £374.9-million investment in other residential properties returned 21.9 per cent (£15.6 million) last year. Its property portfolio increased by £178.9 million to £1323.2 million

• Every diocese bar Europe benefited from the £27.1 million the Commissioners made available for stipend support (£18.3 million), parish mission (£4.2 million), and other purposes

• The Commissioners’ equity investments totalled £2415.6 million

• The stipends bill rose by nearly £4 million to £181.9 million. The Commissioners paid £11.6 million towards it

• Pensions cost £105 million. The Commissioners paid all but £2.8 million of this

• Bishops’ working expenses held steady at £10 million. Their stipends came to £4.3 million

 From the Church Commissioners’ annual report 2004, published this week

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