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Who we are and what we do

Our aim, drawn from our two founding bodies, Queen Anne’s Bounty and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, is to use our resources to sustain and extend the Church’s ministry.

Governance

Six of our 33 governors are holders of government office. The other 27 make up the Board. With some external members, they are organised into six committees. One of them, the nominations and governance committee, was set up at the start of this year to advise the board appointments and best practice in governance.

Our staff includes a dedicated risk manager, and business risks are reviewed annually by the board and relevant committees.The 2008 review and risk register exercise satisfied us that effective controls remain in place. We regularly review the appointment of our professional advisers, and during the year appointed four new firms to handle equities mandates, and two for property / valuations.

Trustees

Governors and committee members receive tailored information about their responsibilities including conflict-of-interest and other policies. A governors’ awayday in the first half of 2008 explore trusteeship and governance issues and work building on that goes forward.

Following new elections by Synod at the end of 2008 we said farewell, with thanks for all their work, to Commissioners whose terms of service ended last year. We welcomed seven new Commissioners: the Bishops of Birmingham and Chester, the Dean of Rochester, Canon Bob Baker and Revd Jeremy Crocker, Mrs April Alexander and Jacob Vince.

Staff and resources

At the end of 2008 the Commissioners employed and managed 81 staff directly. A further 83 people working on property estates were managed by our agents. We also use staff services provided by the Archbishops’ Council, and from the start of this year have taken on a service provider role for accounting, library and records, office services and IT within the national Church bodies.

We have recently appointed a finance director for the national Church bodies, line-managed by the Commissioners, and a director of investment. We look forward to the additional focus these post-holders will bring to our work.

In January 2009 the national bodies implemented phase 2 of the new financial and real-estate information management system, which includes the Commissioners and Pensions Board. Our overall administrative costs, mostly salaries, were £10.1 million – down by 23% in real terms compared with 10 years ago.