Archbishops' Council
(asked on 12th December 2024) - View Source
Question
To ask the Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, how much (a) the Church Commissioners distributed to and (b) was certificated by the Archbishops’ Council under section 2(6) of the National Institutions Measure 1998 in each year since 1998; and how much was granted by the Church Commissioners pursuant to section 1 of the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure 2018 to the Archbishops’ Council in each year since 2018.
Section 1 of the Miscellaneous Provisions Measure 2018 (“the 2018 power”) came into force on 1 March 2019 and has only been used for grants made since the start of 2020. Between the Archbishops' Council’s inception at the start of 1999 and the end of 2019 all grants from the Commissioners to the Council were made under section 2(1) of the National Institutions Measure 1998 (“the 1998 power”).
Since the start of 2020 some grant streams clearly fit under the 1998 power (e.g. Lowest Income Communities Funding) and others have been made using the 2018 power (e.g. support for the Parish Giving Scheme and the energy cost support provided to parishes through dioceses in 2022).
Other grant streams (e.g. the Diocesan Investment Programme) fall within the broader provisions of the 2018 power, but some or all aspects of individual grants may also fall within the 1998 power. It has not been possible to ascertain which proportion of each such grant falls within the scope of the 1998 power. The table below states the total of grants that were entirely within the scope of the 1998 power (which would also have been possible under the much broader 2018 power), those made under the 2018 power only, and those which were partially covered by the 1998 Measure and entirely covered by the 2018 Measure (which are not mutually exclusive).
Church Commissioners’ grants to Archbishops' Council | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
| £m | £m | £m | £m |
1998 Measure | 49.6 | 43.5 | 37.9 | 33.5 |
2018 Measure | 17.2 | 20.1 | 38.3 | 38.0 |
Partially covered under 1998 Measure Entirely covered by 2018 Measure (not mutually exclusive) | 28.0 | 25.7 | 52.0 | 81.4 |
Total | 94.8 | 89.3 | 128.2 | 152.9 |
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Source: Church Commissioners annual report and accounts exclusive of discount applied to multi-year grants.
The Archbishops’ Council provide the Commissioners with an annual certificate under section 2(6) of the National Institutions Measure 1998. There are some differences between the amounts in the annual certificate and the amounts in the Commissioners’ accounts due to differing rounding, accounting policies and the discount factors applied to multiyear grants.