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General Synod digest: funds measure approved for final drafting

12 July 2024

Sam Atkins/Church Times

The Archdeacon of West Cumberland, the Ven. Stewart Fyfe

The Archdeacon of West Cumberland, the Ven. Stewart Fyfe

THE General Synod voted without debate on Saturday morning to send the Church Funds Investment Measure from the Revision Committee to the Steering Committee for final drafting. The measure enables the trustee of a CBF Church of England Fund to transfer its assets to a charity authorised investment fund.

It means that those funds will become authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Charity Commission. VAT will no longer be payable on investment managers’ fees, resulting in a cost saving to charity investors.

Synod also voted to commit the Chancel Repairs (Church Commissioners’ Liability) Measure to the Final Drafting and Approval stage.

It is an enforceable liability to repair, or contribute to the cost of repairing, the chancel of a parish church, and, for historical reasons, is in some cases attached to the ownership of land.

In 2009, the Church Commissioners relieved PCCs of registering liability in cases where the Commissioners owned the land. The measure proposes that this now becomes a free-standing statutory duty of the Commissioners.

Moving the motion, the Archdeacon of West Cumberland, the Ven. Stewart Fyfe (Carlisle), described the measure as “well drafted and boringly sensible, in that respect”. The measure, as it had stood, had led to ”a splatter of unintended consequences”. The revision committee had returned it unamended.

The Third Church Estates Commissioner, Canon Flora Winfield, commended the measure. “By retaining the liability ourselves instead of passing it on, and by putting this on a statutory footing, the Commissioners are significantly mitigating the risk of non-payment or legal action,” she said, describing it as “a more pastorally sensitive approach for all concerned.”

The Archdeacon of London, the Ven. Luke Miller, was delighted. Chancel repair liability “causes a very significant amount of pastoral tension for us right across the Church,” he said. “Something that, when it was originally set up, was sensible and equitable has become a real mess — and often entirely inequitable, as people buy the property and don’t realise they are subject to very significant responsibilities. It can create all sorts of nightmares. We can’t clear it all up, but we should note how significant an issue it is.”

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