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Issues | Ministry | Clergy Terms of Service

Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Measure

A review of Clergy Terms of Service was begun following a threat by the government to produce regulating clergy without security of tenure.

The Department of Trade and Industry discussion document Employment Status in relation to Statutory Employment Rights was produced in 2002. In response to this the Archbishops' Council decided it was necessary to conduct a review of Clergy Terms and a group was set up in December 2002.

The first report of the group was published in 2004 (GS1527). This looked at the status of clergy without security of tenure, as required by the Government. There was likely to be strong resistance to the idea of clergy becoming employees rather than office holders and in the end the proposal was to given clergy "common tenure", which is a new concept.

The second report was produced in 2005 (GS1564). The proposals in this report were entirely unnecessary as a response to the Government but a decision had been taken, somewhere, to take the opportunity provided to review terms of service for all clergy. The two key proposals were to remove clergy freehold of office by giving all clergy "common tenure".

In addition it was proposed to transfer all benefice property, which is currently vested in the incumbent of a a parish, to the Diocesan Board of Finance.

A further raft of proposals included establishing full-blown human resources deparments and procedures for dioceses and the introduction of a capability procedure for clergy.

There has been considerable opposition to almost all aspects of these proposals. In particular the General Synod rejected the proposal to transfer the church and churchyard from the benefice and appeared to given support for a similar motion in relation to parsonages.

As of the middle of 2007 draft legislation has been produced and is being amended by a revision committee. A Terms of Service Implementation Panel has also been established to oversee the major task of setting in place all the material, staff and procedures by 2012 when it is expected that everything will be fully in place. The Secretary of Church Society Trust is acting as a consultant to the Panel on behalf of the Patrons Consultative Group.

The revision stage of the Measure will be taken in the February 2008 Group of Sessions of the General Synod

Legislation