WORK to improve clergy pensions and stipends is under way, underpinned by a determination to “affirm stipendiary clergy and support the fostering of the vocations to stipendiary ministry required by the Church”, the General Synod has been told.
On Saturday, Carl Hughes, who chairs the Finance Committee of the Archbishops’ Council, said that his “biggest concern was how attractive from a financial point of view the stipend is for ordinands once they are in full-time ministry”. All studies suggested, he said, “significant mental-health issues and financial anxiety among clergy”.
In February, the Synod voted unanimously to ask that the Council, the Pensions Board, and the Church Commissioners “work together with dioceses to explore ways in which the level of clergy pensions and stipends might be improved in a sustainable manner”. It followed a private member’s motion that called for the restoration of the clergy pension to its pre-2011 benefit level (News, 1 March 2024).
In December 2021 — after the Remuneration and Conditions of Service Committee review advised against a stipend uplift across the board — the Archbishops’ Council adopted a policy that the national minimum stipend (NMS) would increase, on average, by CPIH (the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs) inflation, subject to three yearly reviews and being alert to sustained high levels of inflation. But, in the subsequent two years, increases were below inflation. Data suggests that it is almost £4000 less than if it had tracked CPIH since 2010.
In April, a seven-per-cent increase from £26,134 to £28,670 came into effect (News, 9 February), but the C of E section of Unite the Union has called for a further increase of eight per cent to “finally close the gap between stipends and inflation and ensure that most clergy can maintain an acceptable standard of living on their stipend”.
Stipend levels have a direct effect on pensions, which are calculated with reference to the NMS in the previous tax year: in April, a five-per-cent rise in pensions that came into payment in the year 2023/24 was implemented.
Among those raising concerns about retired clergy was the Dean of St Edmundsbury, the Very Revd Joe Hawes, who reported that, by Easter this year, three clergy had approached the dioceses and the Suffolk clergy charity for help with debt, all of them in CHARM housing. “It seems that there is a crisis amongst some of our clergy in retirement housing. . . If we are plucking people out of the deep water of debt, the question still remains about why forces of circumstance are causing them to fall in further upstream.”
Because diocesan finances have been squeezed — a recent review highlighted that diocesan deficits were expected to double from £29 million in 2022 to £62 million this year (News, 21 June) — the Church Commissioners are increasingly being urged to act. On Sunday, the First Church Estates Commissioner, Alan Smith, spoke of receiving many letters from bishops and clergy quoting Luke 12 (the parable of the rich fool).
A General Synod paper, GS Misc 1391, provides an update on the work of the Archbishops’ Council, the Pensions Board, and the Commissioners, by the two chairs and the First Commissioner. It speaks of “determination to identify a good response to the motion which seeks to affirm stipendiary clergy and support the fostering of the vocations to stipendiary ministry required by the Church”.
Observing that dioceses have “limited financial capacity to fund a material increase in stipends at this time”, it says that any “step change” would have to be considered in parallel with the Diocesan Finance Review and Triennial Funding Working Group process later this year. Among the areas being reviewed was “whether there is a case and mechanism to provide additional support outside of the core stipend for larger clergy families with caring responsibilities for whom living on the stipend is a struggle even with an uplift, especially in light of the transition to Universal Credit”.
On Saturday, Mr Hughes said that stipends and pensions were “not easy things just to wave a magic wand over to fix”. But he expected that proposals to be brought to the Synod next year, after the second phase of the diocesan-finances review, would mean that the financial flows between the national Church and the dioceses would look “quite different”.
In a presentation on the annual report on Sunday, Mr Smith defended the generosity of the Commissioners, whose fund stands at £10.4 billion, after a 4.1-per-cent return on investments in 2023 (News, 7 June). While this capped 15 years of positive returns, he noted that in the past two years the target of CPIH plus four per cent had not been met. “We are at the cusp of how the markets are operating. . . We need to be wise in terms of how we invest and how we commit for the period ahead,” he said.
The Commissioners’ remit was to “maximise sustainable distributions, not to keep back”. he told the Synod. A total of £3.6 billion was to be distributed between 2023 and 2031: a level of commitment unusual among national grant-makers, particularly given that all indicators suggested that returns would be slower in the years ahead.
In 2023, distributions by the Archbishops’ Council included £9.4 million to support dioceses with the costs of 68.5 additional stipendiary curacies and £5.6 million for additional clergy posts, “to ensure that no suitably qualified curate is left without a post”.
In a presentation to the Synod on Saturday, Mr Hughes told members that “the primary crisis the Church is facing today is missional. The financial challenges are consequential.” The Church of England had seen a decline in average weekly attendance from 1.2 million in 2001 to 654,000 in 2022.
The Triennial Funding Working Group set to convene this autumn would receive input from a new General Synod Reference Group, he confirmed.
“Undoubtedly there will be some difficult choices to make. We will not be able to afford everything that everyone might wish to do. We need to seek to deploy our resources to best effect, focused on effective front-line ministry . . . We need to refocus our efforts on mission and evangelism, underpinned by prayer for our nation to return to Christ. We need to be teaching that giving is part of Christian discipleship, and we need to work towards a time when today’s mission and ministry is again funded by today’s giving.”