The clergy’s pensions viewed in the wider context

From Mr Christopher Daws

Madam, — One can only agree with the letter from the Revd Marcus Gibbs and others (14 March). Clergy who have dedicated their lives to serving the Church must not be abandoned in retirement. Resources are limited, and one has to ask whether best use is being made of them in the present scheme. It offers the same rate of pension accrual to all, regardless of when they join.

The problem is that building up the fund for a year’s service increases greatly as the beneficiary ages. Funding a year’s pension accrual for a 55-year-old costs in the region of three times the same funding for a 25-year-old. And the clergy pension scheme has a preponderance of older members. Once they join, they tend to stay until retirement, and many of them join quite late in life. Commercial schemes have many more younger members who move on to other pursuits and cease accruing further entitlements long before their actual retirement age.

The contribution rates assessed by the Pensions Board are an average and, in line with general practice, do not disclose the different costs for different ages of member.

There is a strong argument for focusing the limited resources on those who dedicate their lives to serving the Church. Those joining before the age of, say, 50 would join the existing defined-benefit scheme. Those joining later, whose defined-benefit accrual costs more each year and who generally have entitlements from their previous employments, would have a defined-contribution scheme as required by law but at much lower cost.

A Synod motion to this effect was proposed some years ago by Gavin Oldham, but was defeated. The idea appears not to have been looked into by the national church institutions.

CHRISTOPHER DAWS
Coombe, Crab Mill Lane, Lea
Malmesbury, Wiltshire SN16 9NF

From the Revd Dr Ian Paul

Madam, — I am very grateful for your coverage of the issue of clergy pensions, and drawing attention to the failure (so far) to act significantly on my private member’s motion in the General Synod more than a year ago. But why has it come to this? Why have hundreds of clergy needed to sign such a letter of protest?

When my motion was carried, after several years of questions and challenge, I thought my work was done. Every member of the House of Bishops voted in favour; both Archbishops approached me personally to give their support. Yet, to my knowledge, not one bishop or archbishop has followed this up, or asked questions about progress. Not once has this been on the agenda of the House of Bishops. Why is this?

What could be more important than offering basic care and security for those in ministry who lead the local church?

IAN PAUL
102 Cator Lane, Chilwell
Nottingham NG9 4BB

From the Dean of York

Madam, — If there is an element of the current outrage so understandably being expressed about the level of clergy pensions that is “indefensible, ungodly, and unchristian”, it is surely the fact that our pensions are calculated without any acknowledgement of the value of our housing.

The ever more tenuous distinction between stipend and salary should not be allowed to disguise the fact that “normal” working people receive a wage or salary, out of which they pay their accommodation costs, whether rent or mortgage. Their pension calculations do not, of course, exclude this part of their remuneration. That this sum is “hidden” by the provision of tied housing, and omitted from any financial assessment linked to the funding of our retirement is an indignity that, as far as I am aware, is unique to stipendiary clergy.

DOMINIC BARRINGTON
8-9 Minster Yard
York YO1 7HH

Madam, — We, the clergy, need to be careful that we don’t alienate our supporters. For a schoolteacher to rent a house for a family, and pay for council tax and water, would cost them an average of £24000 p.a. (£30,000 before tax). On top of a national minimum stipend of £30,000, this might seem a lot. A self-employed person who wished to have a secure pension like ours would need to earn thousands more.

The issue is obviously housing. To get started as a property owner makes all the difference to feeling the real benefits of tied housing.

A tax-free loan over 25 years from the Commissioners’ charity, as a deposit, would enable clergy to take out a mortgage when they are ordained. It would be risky but transformative. Once their mortgage was paid, the charity loan could be repaid, and with a gift of interest and perhaps more into an ongoing pot for future loans.

NAME & ADDRESS SUPPLIED

From the Rt Revd Colin Fletcher

Madam, — As the chairman of the Retired Clergy Association (Church of England), I am very grateful for the high profile that you have given to the debate about the levels of clergy pensions in recent editions of your paper.

A subject that has also been touched on, and which is of particular personal interest to a number of our members, is the fact that ordinands entering training for stipendiary ministry were required or, at the very least, very strongly encouraged, to sell their homes, in part to pay for their training costs, particularly if their spouse was unable to pay money towards their living costs. The reasons given for doing this varied a little, very occasionally mentioning the burdens of a mortgage, or negative equity, but time and again they were told that “you have no need to worry as the Church will look after you.”

To date, I have first-hand evidence of this being common practice in about 15 dioceses, although I do not think it was ever a national policy, and it ran from the final decades of the 20th century into at least the first decade of the 21st.

Sadly, those promises, although made in good faith, fell far short of what those clergy could reasonably have hoped for in terms of housing had steps been taken, as they were in a number of other dioceses, to find ways in which they could retain a foot on the housing ladder.

As an Association, we have been trying to find out just how many clergy were adversely affected, but, to date, GDPR requirements have prevented that research from being undertaken.

If there are others of your readers who were and still are affected by these policies, I would be delighted to hear from them so that we can build up a clearer picture of what was happening down the years.

COLIN FLETCHER
34 Park Street, Bladon
Woodstock OX20 1RW

Madam, — Having checked my pension forecast with gov.uk and churchofengland.org, I find that if I retire at 70, my state and C of E pensions will give me a combined income of approximately £17,500 p.a. This is far short of the national minimum stipend and the £28,000 estimated in the Church Times. I have no savings, no other income, and do not own a home (and the lump sum of £20,000 will not buy one). After paying a modest rent in a reasonably cheap area, that will not give me enough to pay bills and buy food.

As a lone parent with my stipend as my only income, I live on a tight budget already. I rely on regular grants from the Clergy Support Trust for essentials such as car repairs and am unable to increase my savings.

Although I will not be retiring for a while, this is a concern. I know I am not alone in this situation and in the anxiety that it brings.

NAME & ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Canon Tilby and Martin Shaw’s Anglican Folk Mass

From Mr Donald Wetherick

Madam, — I write in response to Canon Angela Tilby’s column (Comment, 7 March), in which she asks whether her love of early-20th-century English church music is a sin. I am a musician who regularly sings church music in choral evensongs in east London (www.eastlondonevensongchoir.com). I want to rephrase her question by asking: “Whom do church services exist to serve?”

If the answer is God, then those attending choral services do no more and no less than St Paul requires in Romans 12.1 by simply presenting their “bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service”, while the ministers, including the musicians, more actively “praise God in his sanctuary” (Psalm 150.1). And if it is the congregation who are served, then it is the ministers’ and musicians’ “reasonable service” to the people of God to perform their liturgical and musical work.

In either case, there is no more nor less sin in enjoying sacred music in worship than in a faithful priest’s enjoying administering the sacrament, or in a faithful congregant’s receiving it. Both music and the eucharistic elements are wholesome gifts of God, made by human hands and yet also capable of divine blessing. I am reminded of the last lines of Herbert’s “Love III”: “You must sit down and taste my meat. So I did sit and eat.”

DONALD WETHERICK
20A Ellesmere Road
London E3 5QX

From the Revd Cedric Reavley

Madam, — Canon Angela Tilby ought to regard good church music as an icon that enables access to a deeper reality. The same is true of other good art-forms.

CEDRIC REAVLEY
Address supplied (Burford, Oxon)

Lord’s Prayer variants

From Jonathan Ralph

Madam, — The Archbishop of York’s invitation to people to “say the Lord’s Prayer as one” (News, 14 March) would stand more chance of success if there was just one single version. The fact that even Common Worship publishes two official variations of the Lord’s Prayer risks division.

Although relatively minor, these alternative wordings create a potentially discordant and uncertain note at a time when this prayer should be at the very core of worship harmony.

I would bet that the “traditional” version is the one that most “non-regulars” would currently find more familiar; and I worry that in making the wording more “accessible” we have instead further diluted and dispersed this so-important “song of heaven”.

JONATHAN RALPH
Gable Cottage, The Street
Aldham
Suffolk IP7 6NH

Church Army’s vital contribution must be saved

From Canon A. J. Canning

Madam, — I am much exercised by the problems facing the Church Army (News, 7 March; Letter, 14 March). During my Ministry in Foleshill, I was privileged to be supported by Bishop Simon Barrington-Ward in employing a series of excellent young Church Army Captains who had fire in their souls and energy in their feet. It was their competence and missionary zeal that created and maintained our proud boast over all those years that our average age never climbed above 25.

Three of them became excellent parish clergy and continued their work of local evangelism and mission. Nik Paddison became a youth-work trainer in Montenegro and continues his multi-cultural activities across the Balkans.

None of them would have entered these excellent fields of work but for the brilliant training of the Church Army. A youth group from Foleshill visited the then new training centre in Sheffield just after the tarmac had been laid in the car park. We had to jack up our minibus, and left holes in the tarmac. We were on our way to Durham.

There must be something we can all do. We cannot do without the Church Army.

JIM CANNING
13 Broadlands Close
Coventry CV5 7AJ

C of E’s monuments should be available to all

From Moira Ackers

Madam, — The disposal of churches is not a private matter for the Church of England, but is of public interest, and the opinions of experts without General Synod connections should be taken into account in the revision committee’s consideration of the Mission and Pastoral Measure (Synod, 28 February).

Churches are the repository of our sculptural heritage, with nearly 90 per cent of medieval and early modern sculpture in situ. Most of this takes the form of memorials. These monuments are not only of art-historical value, but are also important social documents. They are part of this country’s cultural capital and should be made available to all.

The Church Monuments Society recognises that there are huge challenges facing the Church of England, and that there will always be a need for change. But we all have a responsibility to protect our heritage.

I would also like to remind the committee that these monuments do not belong to the Church, and that effort must be made to consult the owners to discuss any change in the monuments situation before anything is done to them.

MOIRA ACKERS
President of the Church Monuments Society
1 Valley Road
Loughborough LE11 3PX