Funding the Church of England
It takes just over £1000 million a year to run the Church of England, financing its 13,000 parishes and 43 cathedrals. For more details see The Church of England Today
Information on the current consultation on Pensions
Where do the funds come from?
How the money is spent
The Archbishops’ Council
The Church Commissioners
The Church of England Pensions Board
Giving and Christian Stewardship
Where do the funds come from?
Around three-quarters (£750 million) comes from worshippers in the parishes. Over the past five years, parishes have increased their giving by around £100 million to meet increased ministry and pension costs.
Across the Church, regular, tax-efficient giving rose by nearly 50% in the five years between 1999 and 2004.
Today:
- over £200 million is given tax-efficiently each year through Gift Aid and a further £60 million is recovered from the Inland Revenue in tax;
- £200 million is given in cash and donations by congregations and visitors;
- £250 million is raised through legacies, special events, the letting of church halls, bookstalls, fundraising and parish magazines etc.
Around 15 per cent (over £160 million) comes from the Church Commissioners who manage assets of £4.8 billion on behalf of the Church:
- In 2005, the Church Commissioners achieved a return of 19.1 per cent on their investments, and over the past ten years they have substantially outperformed the benchmark index of more than 700 similar funds.
- As a result of this above-average performance over the last ten years, the Commissioners’ have been able to distribute £38 million more each year to the Church, than if the investments had performed only at the industry average over the last ten years.
In addition, income for the Church of England is generated from:
- £50 million through income on reserve funds in parishes;
- £50 million through income on reserves in dioceses and cathedrals;
- £30 million from fees paid for weddings, funerals and chaplaincies.
How the money is spent
By parishes:
- The ‘Parish Share’ paid by parishes to dioceses contributes to the costs of clergy stipends across the diocese and, from 1998, pension costs. The way the contributions are calculated varies from diocese to diocese
- The working expenses of their own parish clergy – phone bills, stationery, car mileage etc.
- In addition, some parishes employ local staff, such as administrators, youth, children’s or community workers.
- Running costs of the church, and church buildings. e.g. insurance, heating, and lighting etc.
- Maintenance of church buildings and new building work costing in the region of £160 million per year. In 2004 parishes successfully reclaimed over £6 million of VAT payments by taking advantage of the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme. Such VAT costs fall directly on parishes and it is appropriate that the Scheme responds directly to parishes as they deal with the heavy burden of caring for their Listed church buildings.
- Many parishes give financial support to UK and overseas mission agencies, and to local and international charities. In 2004, parishes gave away over £40 million to such causes.
By dioceses:
- The majority – around 90 per cent - of the ‘Parish Share’ and other income (for example, from diocesan property or land) is used by the dioceses to pay for the clergy and other diocesan ministries. That is the costs of stipends, pensions and National Insurance, parsonage housing, Council Tax and training expenditure both for ordinands and in-service development. This also includes money spent on ministries that support the parishes, such as youth work, children’s work, stewardship and communications.
- The remainder is divided between the costs of ensuring the diocese is run efficiently, centred on a administrative team and an amount paid to General Synod for the national Church responsibilities. (See below for details)
The ‘National Church’
Archbishops’ Council (including work commissioned by General Synod)
The Archbishops’ Council, chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, consists of bishops, clergy and lay members. It gives strategic direction to the national work of the Church of England, within an overall vision set by the House of Bishops and informed by an understanding of the Church's opportunities, needs and resources.
Supporting the Archbishops’ Council is the professional, management and administration team, based at Church House, London, and led by the Secretary-General.
The Council’s expenditure in 2004 was £50.8 million.
The budget of the Archbishops’ Council falls into five categories:
- Training for ministry: the costs of selecting and training ordaining tomorrow’s ministers – £9.3 million or 37.9 per cent An average of 510 men and women have been ordained each year over the last three years
- National support costs: the costs of running national services, such as General Synod, mission and public affairs, education, legal services and communications – £9.9 million or 40.6 per cent. A wide range of activities is covered. See: The Archbishops’ Council
- Grants: contributions to ecumenical and other bodies, such as the World Council of Churches and Churches Together in Britain and Ireland – £1.4 million or 5.8 per cent.
- Mission agencies’ clergy pensions contributions: a contribution to the pensions of retired members of Church of England mission agencies – £740,000 or three per cent
- Retired housing subsidy and administration costs: the costs of helping retired clergy with a home in retirement – £3.1 million or 12.7 per cent
In addition, the Archbishops’ Council is responsible for distributing:
- Selective Allocations: funds provided by the Church Commissioners which are issued to the least ‘well-off’ dioceses for stipend and housing support - £22.5m, a substantial increase from 2004.
- Parish Mission Fund: funds provided by the Church Commissioners which are issued to all dioceses for mission initiatives but can also be used stipend support - £4.2 million.
The Church Commissioners
The Church Commissioners manage the historic assets of the Church of England, worth more than £4 billion. The portfolio of assets includes stock market investments, and commercial, residential and rural property investments.
The Commissioners’ mission is to support the Church of England's ministry, particularly in areas of need and opportunity.
In 2005, the Commissioners made payments of:
- £100 million for clergy pensions based on service before 1998
- £30 million for parish mission and ministry support
- £20 million for diocesan and suffragan bishops’ stipends, housing, office staff and working costs
- £6 million for the stipends of the Dean and two residential canons in each cathedral, and grants to cathedrals, mainly for other staff salaries
More information about the Church Commissioners
The Church of England Pensions Board
The Board administers a wide range of pension schemes covering clergy, clergy widow(er)s and the lay employees of the Church. It also operates seven retirement homes, a nursing home and provides housing assistance for retired clergy through mortgage assistance or for rent. It makes various grants from its charitable funds to augment the pensions of those on particularly low incomes.
In carrying out these functions it :
- is responsible for over 20,000 pension scheme members
- collects over £60 million each year in pension contributions from both employers and employees
- manages pension and charitable fund assets of over £500m
- provides retirement housing for over 2,900 clergy and their widow(er)s
- provides retirement/nursing home places for 250 people
- raises around £1m pa from donations, appeals and legacies.
More information about the Church of England Pensions Board
More information:
Giving and Christian Stewardship
Christian stewardship website
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