Changing Chairs

Allan Bridgewater the retiring Chair of the Church of England Pensions Board (January 1998- December 2008) held a ‘new opportunities’ party when he retired as Chief Executive of Norwich Union in 1997. This time round (last year he also retired as chairman of Swiss Re in the Gherkin, London’s iconic landmark) he has promised his wife he really will retire – “well probably.” He says the Board will be in excellent hands under the chairmanship of Dr Jonathan Spencer (see below) who he has known for many years in the business world.

Allan started his business life just before his 16th birthday as the office boy with the Scottish Union insurance company. It was during his National Service in the RAF during training in Hednesford and Hornchurch and subsequently as Personnel Selection Assessor in Leeds that he came across what he describes as ‘the great gift of Christian hospitality generously given’ which played a key part in his decision to ‘give something back’ to the Church of England.

“The work we do in providing supported housing in our retirement homes with access to them for clergy and lay workers is far more than just a business transaction. It is about on going caring provision for those individuals who have given tremendous service to God in the Church of England. Of course we have the responsibility to manage the financial affairs as good stewards conscious of the generous charitable support we receive.”

Allan says it has been a great privilege during his 11 years as chair to visit the seven homes and talk with the residents.

During his chairmanship he was very much involved in the changes in the clergy pension provision (approved by General Synod in July 2007) – concerned to achieve an acceptable balance between the benefits for clergy with affordability for church members who pay the contributions to the funded scheme.

His prayer is that despite the current recession parishioners will still feel able to contribute to the Boards’ charitable funds – completely separate from the money used to pay pensions – so that the Pensions Board can continue to provide homes within the housing schemes including for those who need financial support.

One unfulfilled ambition in his eleven years in the Chair, he jests, is that he has failed to change the eligibility for residence in the Board’s homes to include former Chairmen. “It is perhaps a little late for my wife or me to be ordained!”

Retirement plans? To be less busy, travel and spend more time with his wife Janet and his family.

Allan Bridgewater (left) at the opening of the Manormead Retirement Home earlier this year. He is pictured with (from l to r) Isabel Wren, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Guildford.

Dr Jonathan Spencer says he is greatly looking forward to chairing the 20-strong board from January 1 and harnessing the different expertise of members in the new role which will take up around day a week of his time.

After graduating from Cambridge in 1970 he completed his Doctorate in Oxford in 1974 following a period as an ICI research fellow. Jonathan then joined the Department of Trade and Industry and spent more than 30 years in a range of senior civil service posts, leaving Whitehall in 2005. He first met Allan Bridgewater when he ran the part of the DTI that regulated the insurance industry, and they have remained good friends ever since. He is now a public policy consultant and sits on a number of Boards in the public and private sectors.

As Chair of the Pensions Board he sees the main challenge as sustaining the pension promise to retired and retiring clergy in a way that is affordable to the people in the pew who pay for it: “we have to show careful custody and good value for money.” But he also feels strongly that, despite the often complicated finances involved, the Board must always recognise in a truly Christian spirit that pensions are about individual people “It is people’s lives we are dealing with, their pensions and their housing in retirement.”

When at home he admits to liking nothing better than looking after his large garden in Kent. He and his wife Caroline held their wedding reception there in 1976when it was owned by his in-laws, and now live there themselves; the couple have three grown-up children. He is also assistant treasurer of St Gregory and St Martins Church, Wye in Kent and, if in doubt about church procedure in his new role, he will always be able to consult Caroline who is lay chair of Canterbury Diocesan Synod and a member of General synod.