The Church of England is “heading for financial disaster” thanks to its Net Zero ambitions and a £100million slavery reparations fund, according to a new report by Canon Robin Gill and Professor John Craven – who found that 37 out of 42 dioceses now run deficits vs. 2019 when it was just 18.
The authors of Wasted Money in a Diminishing Church call falling attendance, donations and ordinations a “crisis,” and say dioceses now employ 80 percent more staff than in 2005, with the total rising from 1,300 to 2,300. According to the Daily Mail, the new roles include net zero officers, racial justice leads and safeguarding experts, and some dioceses now have as many staff as ministers.
“More and more of its funds are being spent on administration in every diocese while churchgoing continues to decline, and less and less is spent on supporting parish clergy,” the report says. Its twelve recommendations include cutting the number of dioceses and diocesan bishops to around 30, cutting the money allocated nationally to strategic investments by at least three-quarters, and making deaneries the main budget holders.
The authors also single out social justice projects as “costly” and “extravagant,” and say congregations see them as “unrealistic, extravagant, unsustainable and deeply depressing.” And of course, the church’s woke Net Zero target is insane – the Church wants to reach it by 2030 and, according to the Mail, has a £190 million fund for eco-friendly renovations, but a Church Times report says its own progress report forecasts a cut of about 29 percent from 2023 levels by 2030, short of the target.
The other is… reparations! Project Spire, a £100 million fund spread over nine years, set up after research the Church commissioned concluded that Queen Anne’s Bounty, a predecessor of the Church Commissioners’ endowment, had links to the transatlantic slave trade. Critics, including the Conservative peer Nigel Biggar, call that research flawed – though of course the Church rejects the charge.
In December, MPs and peers led by Conservative MP Katie Lam wrote to the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, calling it a “legally dubious vanity project” and arguing that the endowment must be used for parish ministry and church buildings.
Mullally has defended the fund, saying it does not diminish support for parishes and citing £1.6 billion for them over the next three years. Synod members have been told that more than £1.15 million has already been spent on Spire.
Of note, preliminary figures show attendance rising for a fifth straight year, to an estimated 707,000 in a typical week in 2025, up 0.7 percent, though still below 2019’s 854,000. Nor is the money trouble new: a 2024 national review found 30 dioceses in operating deficit in 2022, with aggregate deficits projected to double from £29 million to £62 million and 23 dioceses holding less than three months’ cash.
The suggested fix? “Ruthless” action on bureaucracy, with parishes as the Church’s “first priority.”