IT IS not often that the Church Times receives a letter for publication with more than 700 signatories — but this is a clear indication of the growing anger about the inadequacy of clergy pension provision, a year after the General Synod voted in favour of reform (News, 9 February 2024; Letters).

The Church of England is far from the only employer facing pressures on its pension scheme. The roots are always deep-seated and complex, because pension schemes are necessarily based on long-term investments and economic uncertainties. But the seeds of the current crisis can be traced back to a series of decisions by the Synod: in 2007, a full pension was tied to 40 years’ service (instead of 37). In 2011, that became 41.5 years. Furthermore, the retirement age then jumped from 65 to 68, and — perhaps most significantly — the pension was reduced from two-thirds of the national minimum stipend (NMS) to half. And the NMS has been steadily eroded, when compared with average pay.

These losses are significant and real, although it should be remembered that the clergy are far from unique in today’s Britain in feeling the pinch. (The clergy and state pensions combined currently provide an estimated average income of £28,000.) Yet, there is also a group of clerics approaching retirement who were encouraged — pressurised, some would say — to sell their property before ordination, with the promise that the Church would see them right. Given the stratospheric rise in property prices in recent decades, this was disastrous. A survey of clerics last year found that 69 per cent of respondents thought it unlikely that they would own a property on retirement (News, 4 July 2024). Meeting this housing need will be extremely costly for both the Church and retirees. No wonder people are angry.

Many dioceses are in perilous financial straits. Hence the argument that it is not dioceses that should bear the cost of pension contributions — as they have since 1998 — but the Church Commissioners. We live in testing economic times, but there has, at least, been positive news from the Pensions Board, which reported a 9.4-per-cent return on its investments in 2024, taking its funds to £3.4 billion (News, 20 February). Proposals under consideration by the Triennium Funding Working Group suggest an uplift in the NMS, and a corresponding uplift in the pension rate (News, 31 January). Carl Hughes, who chairs the Archbishops’ Council Finance Committee, has responded with sympathy to this new cry for justice (Letters). The challenge, he argues, is how to achieve sustainable improvement in stipend and pension levels “without adding to the financial pressures on dioceses and parishes”. Proposals will come before the Synod in July. It is to be hoped that these offer a plan for radical change. The problem will not go away.