The Church of England has published the office and working costs of its bishops for 2006. Here is the press release.
The 2006 office and working costs of bishops in the Church of England are published today. Figures for individual bishops were first published, for the year 2000, in December 2001. Bishops’ office and working costs were previously published as a total figure.
In 2006, the Church Commissioners funded the ministry of Church of England bishops by some £15.9 million, figures from the House of Bishops show. Of that sum, £4.6m related to stipends, National Insurance and pension contributions for the 44 diocesan and 69 suffragan/full-time assistant bishops. The remaining £11.3m related to bishops’ office and working costs, most of which pays for the salaries and pensions of office staff, as set out in this report.
Copies of Bishops’ office and working costs for the year ended 31 December 2006 are available from Bishoprics and Cathedrals Dept, The Church Commissioners, Church House, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3AZ, tel 020 7898 1058.
The booklet includes a full description of the important role played by bishops locally, regionally and nationally.
The booklet for 2006, and for previous years back to 2000, can be downloaded from here.
Couldn’t we get a rather less inept leadership for 15.9 million quid?
Quite an area for rationalisation and cost cutting, then.
I see Jeffrey John’s behaviour several years ago as admirable, he “gave up the honours that had been thrust upon for the good of the Church” just like one of my heroes, St. Chad. Chad was quite a guy. The then AbpofC demanded he buy a horse, because he though it beneath the dignity of a bishop to walk, and he wasn’t going to have it said that one of his bishops walked around his diocese. Chad relented and bought the horse, but walked along by its side as his chaplain rode along to the next parish. We need more… Read more »
By American standards, even calculated at the current rate with a weak dollar, this does not seem excessive. Indeed that is why the Episcopal Church is seen as rich by other Anglican churches. Unfortunately, the generosity of TEC is now seen as a negative by some of those who have been and continue to be its beneficiaries, and have become obsessed with one unimportant diocese that happens to have a gay bishop. I think the CoE is getting pretty good value for money.
Do these figures include the cost of the spine removal surgery?
What a ridiculous waste of money.
Why do you need all this myriad of bureaucracy?
Andrew: I honestly don’t think many in the UK would agree! I think that there could be a cutting of the number of dioceses for a start
UKP 40,000 per bishop for salary (average) doesn’t seem excessive.
UKP 100,000 for support staff and other overhead seems a bit much.
And why are there 2.5 bishops per diocese?
The published figures go back to 2000, during which the number of bishops has declined by 1 (less than 1%) whilst the number of clergy overall has declined by 10%.
The total costs for the bishops, including housing, have risen from £15.8m to £24.5m in that time.
David K: Yes, one can see this as another example of the current Anglican obsession with making everyone a general, whether or not there are any footsoldiers left. I think if you looked at figures over, say the last century, they would show a massive decline in Anglican church attendance in England, but a relentless increase in the number of bishops. An intelligent review of leadership might come up with some radical solutions to cut the top-heavy nature of the C of E. This top-heavy view of leadership is what leads to the idea that church is all about high-level… Read more »
I did a story on these as well, thought they were quite interesting. See:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3048227.ece
Thanks for the link, Ruth, that’s an interesting story. I’ve got to the point where I could happily see the lot of them packed off to semis on council estates!
Let me shoot a few fish out of this particular barrel. There has no way been a 10% reduction in C of E clergy since 2000. The posting may have mistaken clergy numbers for the number of stipendiary clergy (pretty insulting to the increasing band of non-stipendiary and self-supporting priests and deacons). Nor, I suspect has the figure taken account of House for Duty priests and retired clergy licensed under seal (and hence VERY active in ministry). The mixed economy of paid and unpaid, ordained and lay ministers (Reader numbers are also buoyant) takes at least as much oversight if… Read more »
David W – my apologies, it’s stipendiary clergy that have reduced (according to the ‘Sheffield formula’ figures), not clergy overall, though since Bishops are stipendiary clergy too, I still think it’s a fair comparison. If the whole paid/unpaid thing really doesn’t matter that much, then why not apply it to episcopal ministry as well as parish ministry?
This document doesn’t seem to tell us what the various bishop£s stipends are. Where is this info published?
Bishops’ stipends in 2007/08 are
Archbishop of Canterbury £67,790
Archbishop of York £57,210
Bishop of London £55,380
Other diocesan bishops £36,230
Suffragan bishops £29,560
Full-time assistant bishops £28,610
These figures can be found in the annual report of the Church Commissioners. The report can be downloaded from here:
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/about/churchcommissioners/annualreport/
Thanks for this. I noticed some figures appearing recently in the post Christmas press.