Synod reconvened at the Friends Meeting House on Saturday January 20th to hear an update on the conversation with the national church regarding our financial support. In light of that, they were able to unanimously endorse the next stage of the conversation with the national church and overwhelmingly approve the diocesan budget for 2024.
As we have reported before we have identified a structural deficit of up to £1m. We believe the underlying cause of this is due to the fact the Diocese of Liverpool has considerably lower historic assets than other dioceses. This, along with challenging demographics, low land and asset values, and a giving base affected by the covid pandemic means we have a low income available to support parish mission and ministry.
We have been in conversation with the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board (SMMIB) of Archbishops’ Council throughout 2023.
In March of 2023 SMMIB supported our three requests
1 Stabilisation funding of up to £1 million as a short-term measure to support our 2023 budget.
2. Support to begin significant work on what we termed category C parishes, namely those parishes
paying less Parish Share than parishes in the same socio economic group.
3. An Independent Review of the Diocese of Liverpool (in reality St James House) to see whether our financial position was caused by:
a. Poor management and/or not doing things that other dioceses were successfully doing
b. An unjust financial settlement
The Independent Review was presented to SMMIB in October and after a further conversation with SMMIB in November they offered:
1. People support to help us develop a comprehensive mission, finance and people plan (what we are terming a development plan) to underpin our work and any national church investment until 2030.
2. Further and final stabilisation funding for 2024 of £750,000 to give time to develop the above plan without having to make non-strategic cuts that reinforce a spiral of decline.
3. An award of £500,000 to support clergy housing.
The timescale for the completion of the development plan is end of May 2024 with a view that any resulting financial support and investment will be available from January 2025. There will be no further stabilisation funding available beyond 2024.
Synod unanimously supported these proposals.
You can read our full briefing note here.
In the light of the above – and in particular the offer of stabilisation funding for 2024 – Synod went on to approve the budget which was compiled broadly on the same basis as the 2023 budget but with further national church funding available to underpin a level of shortfall in Parish Share collection.
Synod also approved proposals that seek to increase the cash collection rate of Parish Share in 2024.