Dioceses are also to receive more funds with the aim of easing financial stress and providing breathing space “as they pursue longer term strategies for mission growth and sustainability”, according to the latest papers released before July’s meeting of the General Synod, the Church’s governing body, in York.
The aim is to promote clergy wellbeing as one of the key priority matters. This includes increasing clergy stipends to catch up with inflation since 2011, improvements to the starting rate of pensions, improvements to support for ordinands and a commitment to improving housing choice for clergy in retirement.
The proposal to raise clergy stipends comes amid declining vocations and increasingly serious issues with diocesan finances. Many dioceses and parishes face financial shortfalls and long-deficits, not helped by a prolonged decline in Church attendance, despite the welcome post-pandemic increases, says a diocesan motion from Norwich.
Dioceses pay clergy stipends while senior clergy such as bishops and archbishops are paid by the Church Commissioners.
According to a separate Hereford diocesan motion, the latest diocesan finances review has revealed a “catastrophic and rapidly deteriorating picture for diocesan finances” with aggregate diocesan deficits of £29m in 2022, expected to have more than doubled to £62m in 2024.
The number of dioceses in deficit is increasing, with 18 in deficit in 2019 and at least 35 (83 per cent) expecting to be in deficit in 2024.”
The 42 dioceses are making ends meet by selling assets, usually houses, using pastoral reorganisation to cut clergy posts and increasing the length of vacancies.
The motion states: “The financial crisis of dioceses has also been recognised to be a driver of the low numbers of vocations currently coming forward for ordained stipendiary ministry. Vocations have fallen by 40 per cent since 2019, with fewer than 350 ordinands beginning training in 2024 compared with an original aspiration of 650.“
More than four in ten stipendiary clergy report that they experience financial stress, and one fifth have sought help from the Clergy Support Trust. The 10.7 per cent rise would put the national benchmark stipend at £34,950 from next April.
Meanwhile, in contrast to the bleak picture of declining diocesan finances, the Church Commissioners’ financial performance has been a success story, their funds having grown from £3.48 billion in 1997 to more than £10.6 billion in 2024.
“At current rates of disbursement, the Church Commissioners are achieving the remarkable feat of returning to the Church the total of their endowment every 25 years. The fund management of the Church Commissioners should be lauded as a financial and ethical success story,” the motion states.
One consequence of this however is that parishioners in the pew, often the most effective local fundraisers, can feel the Church of England is doing so well with its investments that they no longer need to do their traditional appeals, sales or other events to raise cash.
The synod opens on the afternoon Friday 11 July with an act of worship and then an address by Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell. A presentation on spending plans will be one of the first items, that same afternoon.
Challenges to the spending proposals are expected to come up in questions from synod members, on Friday evening. One key aspect is how clergy pensions are paid – and whether the Commissioners should share more of the large burden pensions represent to parishes.
One bishop told The Tablet: “I sense a turning point in the Church of England with the 10.7 per cent increase in clergy stipends. It will be very good for recruiting.”
Bishop of Chester Mark Tanner told journalists at a Synod briefing that 10.7 per cent might sound “massive” but in fact is simply a rebalancing to bring stipends in line with inflation since 2011.
The aim is to channel more money from central funds to dioceses so they are able to pay it, meaning the overall effect on diocesan finances will be “neutral” he said. Similarly, pensions will be increased – they had also fallen behind, having dropped for what were then deemed good reasons from two-thirds to half of stipend levels.