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Looking Ahead

Much stands to be gained through the strategic direction given to the Church of England's mission by the establishment in 1999 of the Archbishops' Council and through the resulting ability of the Church Commissioners to focus anew upon their core mission to support the work of the Church.

The willingness of parishes and dioceses to pay for an increasing proportion of stipends and pensions costs relieves the pressure on the Church Commissioners to produce an unsustainable level of income. This has enabled them to rebalance their assets for better future capital and income growth. They plan to provide a minimum of £20million pa to support the Church's ministry at parish level. This has been rising from 2003. Nonetheless, the Church Commissioners' main item of expenditure will for some time to come be clergy pensions on service up to the end of 1997.

The Church Commissioners remain very aware that their support for the Church's ministry at parish level - once a key part of their work, and that of their predecessors - is today only a small proportion of their total expenditure. They are looking at all aspects of their expenditure to determine how, practically, their key strategic objective of increasing the sustainable amount of their support for parish ministry can best be fulfilled.

This exercise is being conducted in close consultation with the Archbishops' Council and with the wider Church whose role and input will be vital. The Church Commissioners look forward to working together with their partners in the Church and to seeing what that may bring.

For more information about the Church Commissioners' current activity, see the News section of this site. For general enquiries please contact the Church of England switchboard on (020) 7898 1000.

Further details about the work and history of the Commissioners are available from our Policy Unit. Tel. +44 (0)20 7898-1619/20/23 or e-mail commissioners.enquiry@c-of-e.org.uk.