Day 2
Strategic Priorities for Mission of the Church Outlined in RCB Report
Progress on the Representative Church Body’s strategic priorities and its plans for the future were outlined to members of General Synod meeting in Naas this afternoon (Saturday May 10).
Proposing the report of the RCB, chairperson of the RB executive committee Hilary Prentice, presented the economic situation and the achievements attained by the body over the past year.
Ms Prentice began with an overview of financial performance and pointed out that global financial markets had another good year which resulted in significant gains for each of the RCB managed funds including a 12% increase in RB General Funds to €263m.
This steady growth in fund value allowed the Executive Committee to review and revise upwards the maximum permitted withdrawal from RB General Funds for 2025, she said. Ms Prentice reported that during 2024 the Total Return budgeted expenditure was €8.6m for staff costs and allocations, up from €8m in 2023.
Strategic Priorities
Turning to the strategy and mission of the RCB she recalled the strategic priorities established by the RB Exec in 2023. These included:
· Funding for curacies to support stipendiary ministry
· To develop a comprehensive funding strategy for chaplaincy
· To integrate pioneer ministry within the Church of Ireland so as to support new forms of ministry
· To develop a property and library strategy as part of a future campus
· Promoting positive mental health through the MindMatters project, and
· Focusing on committee succession planning.
She said the range of services provided by staff of the RCB had grown as the needs of parishes had increased with greater charity regulations and compliance requirements. The services provided include investment services, trust management, property management, communication support, Synod and committees, legal services, archive services, advisory GDPR and HR, safeguarding, clergy payroll and pensions, library services and education advice.
In the area of safeguarding, Ms Prentice said that the RCB conducted a review of the service in 2024 and has introduced changes to the organisation of safeguarding for the Church of Ireland. The review recommended organisation by specialism, introducing triage and recruiting specialist safeguarding case workers. These measures will be implemented during 2025.
The Property and Trusts Department had begun a project to review about 18,000 trusts held by the RCB to simplify their management and to ensure compliance, she said.
The RCB Library holds the records of over 1,200 parishes, 20 cathedrals and the dioceses. It also holds valuable ecclesiastical manuscripts and RCB records. Ms Prentice said that the work of digitising parish records continued with the support of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. She added that both the RCB and the Library recognised that the current building was inadequate and its future needs are being considered as part of the campus review.
In relation to the campus review, she reported that the RCB appointed architects Mullarkey Pederson in 2024 to advise on whether the current site of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute at Braemor Park of the larger former Church of Ireland College of Education site at Rathmines would be suitable for a future RCB, Library and CITI campus. They recommended the Rathmines site and the Representative Body approved the recommendation. Over the coming years she said it was hoped to develop plans for this exciting initiative.
RCB Expenditure
Turning to how the income available to the RCB during 2024 was allocated, Ms Prentice said that over half the allocation was required to pay for the services provided by the staff of the RCB. The most significant other allocations were the costs of running General Synod and its committees, the cost of operating CITI and the 50% subsided provided to fund the episcopacy.
In 2024 the RCB approved the first Pioneer Ministry projects with funding for South Lisburn Community Church, the spiritual tourism and pilgrimage pioneer project in Tuam, Limerick and Killaloe, a church plant in partnership with the parish of Crumlin & Chapelizod, and Mourne Community Church in Warrenpoint.
Funding had been approved for five projects but the RCB was requested to allocate funding for the fifth project towards the training costs of four additional Pioneer Minsters so that eight people were approved to begin training in September of last year.
Ms Prentice said that the RB Executive reviewed the Total Return in 2024 and, with input from their external fund managers, they determined that they could increase the maximum permitted withdrawal from RB General Funds from 3.6% to 3.9% of the previous five year average fund values.
The increased withdrawal allows for funding of:
· Curacy Grants (£22,000 or €27,000 for the first three years of curacy) to support curacies in the Church of Ireland.
· Chaplaincy with an additional allocation of €100,000 and a further €50,000 from Sundry Projects.
· Family and Children’s Ministry to fund the permanent role of outreach worker.
· Safeguarding to employ Safeguarding Case Workers to work with Diocesan Compliance Officers.
· School patronage to recruit Education Advisors to support bishops in their roles as Patrons of Church of Ireland primary schools.
· MindMatters to provide further training and ongoing clergy support.
The annual cost of these priorities and the increases for existing commitments brings the total allocations from RCB funds to €5.5m in 2025, up from €4.1m in 2024.
“While we hope that the increased allocations will encourage growth, we are also mindful of the challenges facing parishes with declining numbers and the increased burden of compliance, the cost of maintaining expensive historical buildings, and the challenge to fill vacancies,” Ms Prentice said.
Clergy Pensions
Ms Prentice outlined the role of the RCB in providing support for the closed defined benefit Clergy Pensions Fund and the current Clergy Defined Contribution Pension Schemes for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
At the end of the year the Clergy Pensions Fund had 470 pensioners and 234 members still in service in the Church of Ireland, she reported. During 2024 the Trustee de–risked the scheme and reintroduced the ability for clergy to receive an early retirement pensions. On January 1 2024 pensions were increased by almost 25% for Sterling pensions and 12% for Euro pensions. Above–inflationary increases were also approved by the RCB at the beginning of 2025.
She said that the significant pension increases on January 1 2024 caused an anomaly whereby a small number of clergy who had a Normal Retirement Age before December 31 2023 but were still serving on January 1 2024 were determined by the Trustee to be disadvantaged. Bill No 7 was introduced to deal with this.
Following approval at General Synod in 2024, Ms Prentice said that Master Trusts for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland were introduced to replace the Clergy Defined Contribution Pension Schemes. Mercer was chosen as the Master Trust providers.
Dignity in Church Life
Turning to Dignity in Church Life Policies she said that changes had been approved to the Clergy Permanent Health Insurance Policy such that clergy availing of the scheme would not have to be licenced.
In concluding her speech, Ms Prentice said that a huge amount had been achieved during 2024 and thanked the staff of the RCB and those who serve on committees for their commitment and dedication.
Services Provided by RCB
Seconding the report the Very Revd Niall Sloane (Diocese of Limerick and a clerical member of the RB Executive Committee) took the opportunity to consider the services provided by the RCB.
He said that the RCB Library was said to be one of the Church of Ireland’s best kept secrets so he wished to advertise some of its services. These include its support for the theological education of students at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, public exhibitions of its collection, and access to the public to its collection and to church and parish records.
“This is a precious and valuable collection to have in our custody and we thank the Librarian, Dr Hood, and her team for their careful stewardship of these documents. For any parish with registers lying in a safe or drawer, I would encourage you to send your archives to the RCB Library for safekeeping knowing that you can access this information through the library staff,” Dean Sloane said.
He turned the spotlight on the various funds administered by the RCB which support parishes. These include property grants such as the Marshal Beresford and the Church Fabric Fund which support ongoing works on church buildings. An additional energy grant had been added to the portfolio this year, he stated. He encouraged parishes to seek out the local authority and State grants available along with Church grants.
The RCB also has a representative role, Dean Sloane said and includes the bishop, clerical and lay membership from each diocese. The RB Executive Committee comprised members of the RB plus coopted members who provide specific skills and expertise to support the mission and ministry of the Church of Ireland. He added that to work effectively the RB had to communicate and listen and he encouraged members of General Synod to ask questions and give feedback so that these may influence the future of the RCB.
Speaking to the report Andrew Brannigan (Down and Dromore) thanked the group for all the work that has been done. He noted the parish contribution on the clergy pension had gone up last year but said that if the fund was as healthy as it seemed it would be good for parishes if there was no need for the three percent levy going forward. Ms Prentice said this would be reviewed this year.
Derek Neilsen (Glendalough) said he had the pleasure of using the new digitised parish registers in the RCB Library some months ago in his work as a genealogist and it shortened the length of time taken to do the work. He urged parishes with records in local custody to entrust them to the library.
The motions on allocations and the clergy and ministry protection fund were passed by Synod.