Opening new doors

Keeping in tune with the changing landscape, the Archbishops’ Council and Church Commissioners are helping dioceses with their ministry and mission to areas of new housing and other developments by providing earmarked funding.

The new funding focus created in 2008 – £7.25 million – is aimed at putting people in key places by resourcing lay and ordained ministry in these new areas and has been allocated to 15 dioceses where much of this new development is taking place. More details will be announced as dioceses firm up plans in their own communities.

Overall (and including the new funding stream) the Archbishops’ Council distributed more than £40m of parish level ministry and mission last year from the Commissioners’ funds (compared to £32.9 million in 2007), despite a year of declining asset values*, with £28 million distributed across the 29 least resourced dioceses.

A climbing wall for a community in Manchester, placed in a church building closed for worship; the annual festival pilgrimage at St Albans; youth and children’s work in central London; Oxford diocese’s ‘Cutting Edge’ ministries (to create new and self-sustaining ministries alongside the parish network); and many more community-based projects around the country were supported by the Commissioners’ funds last year. The Church Urban Fund and the Archbishops’ Council Youth Evangelism Fund also received support.

The 2008 audited report shows that the Commissioners intend to continue planned levels of support for dioceses through to the end of 2010 and hope to maintain the current level of support for dioceses in cash terms into 2011–13. For several years, the Commissioners have operated a smoothing arrangement in terms of distribution of funds – paying out less to dioceses than might have been possible in good years to keep funding back to maintain a steady or smooth level of contribution.

The annual cost of running the CofE is more than £1.1 billion, more than three-quarters of this comes from dioceses and parishes, mainly parish giving. The Commissioners contribute around 17 per cent – £197.7 million in 2008 – covering pensions earned by clergy for service before 1998, support for the ministry of the church in parishes and the work of bishops and cathedrals.

*The 2008 Annual Report shows a negative total return of -19.6 per cent compared to the average of 5.7 per cent per year over the past 10 years.