Methodists get ready to grasp the finance nettle

JOHN ELLIS has the unenviable job of implementing the decision, made by the Methodist Conference last year, to reduce his Church’s central budget by 30 per cent by 2008.

Together with his small group, he has to put a strategy in place for approval at the 2007 Conference in July.

The task is a big one. The Connexional Team — the Church’s central structure — comprises about 200 people, 140 of whom work the equivalent of full-time. The majority work at Methodist Church House in London; others in training colleges, the Central Finance Board, Westminster Central Hall, and the Methodist Publishing House.

Funding for the central staff team comes predominantly from the assessment paid by the churches, their equivalent of the annual parish share. The Methodist Church in Britain has just under 300,000 members. It is wealthy in capital terms, but not in terms of cash flow, and, unlike the C of E, it does not have a historical investment base: this generation pays for what this generation is doing, says Mr Ellis.

Historically, money is held in the circuits, the equivalent of dioceses. This means that in recent years, reserves have been drawn on to fund large shortfalls in areas such as the pension fund for lay employees.

No immediate financial crisis triggered the review. The Church — or at least, those in touch with the centre — had come to the view several years ago that its present size was unsustainable, and had therefore to take seriously the cutting back of costs. Read more