The Church of England should cut its mainland dioceses from 40 to about 30, reduce spending on administration, and give deaneries control over substantial church funds, according to a report warning that expanding management and shrinking parish ministry have placed the institution on an unsustainable course.
In *Wasted Money in a Diminishing Church*, Canon Professor Robin Gill and Professor John Craven argue that the Church’s financial problems reflect more than declining attendance. They contend that decisions about money, staffing, and property have become increasingly distant from the congregations expected to support them. Their proposed remedy combines fewer dioceses, stronger local control, and greater **accountability** for spending.
Church House has called the report “wide-ranging and thoughtful,” while defending the expansion of specialist safeguarding staff and warning that major restructuring would be complicated. The response identifies the central disagreement: whether existing structures provide necessary support for ministry or consume resources that should be placed under more direct local control.
Published in October through the Centre for Anglican History and Theology at the Universities of Kent and Christ Church Canterbury, the report comes from two authors with extensive experience of church affairs. Gill is an emeritus professor of applied theology, a former parish priest, and a former theological adviser to archbishops of Canterbury. Craven is an economist, former university vice-chancellor, and former member of the Archbishops’ Council.
“We want to break this silence because we are convinced that the Church of England is heading for financial disaster,” they write. They describe a cycle in which fewer priests and less frequent services weaken congregations; smaller congregations contribute less money; and financial pressure then produces further reductions in parish ministry while administrative costs continue to rise.
Their warning is not a forecast of insolvency on a specified date. They acknowledge the Church’s substantial wealth and the Church Commissioners’ strong investment performance over recent decades. Their argument is that central wealth does not guarantee adequate support for the local ministry through which most people encounter the Church.
Nor do they promise that restructuring will reverse religious decline. Even if every recommendation were adopted, they concede, the Church would be unlikely readily to reverse two centuries of declining attendance. They argue instead that reducing unnecessary overhead and improving clergy morale are prerequisites for any credible effort at renewal.
The report’s appendix records an increase in diocesan employees from 1,294 to 2,353 between its baseline and latest reporting years, a rise of 82 percent. Its clergy figures fall from 8,710 to 5,683, a reduction of 35 percent. Parish-share receipts—the contributions congregations make toward diocesan expenditure—decline from approximately £402 million to £322 million when the earlier figure is adjusted to 2025 prices, a real reduction of 20 percent.
The report does not describe the clergy decline consistently. Its key findings say parish clergy “almost halved,” while another passage gives a reduction of one-quarter. The appendix’s aggregate figures show a decline of approximately one-third. These descriptions should not be treated as equivalent; the appendix provides the clearest numerical basis for reporting the comparison.
There are other limitations. Dioceses report employees differently, using headcounts, averages, or full-time equivalents. Some clergy working in administration are excluded because they receive stipends rather than employee salaries. Two dioceses’ latest entries rely on 2024 rather than 2025 accounts. The authors expressly warn against using their tables to rank individual dioceses.
The figures establish a substantial change in the balance between diocesan staffing and parish clergy. They do not, by themselves, establish that administrative expansion caused falling attendance. The report’s stronger case is that these opposing trends demand an explanation: why has one part of the institution expanded while the ministry that supports its public presence has contracted?
Gill and Craven propose reducing mainland dioceses to approximately 30 by 2032, with corresponding reductions in diocesan bishops, other senior clergy, and administrators. This is not a proposal to reduce every category of serving bishop to a combined total of 30.
They point to apparent economies of scale. The 12 largest mainland dioceses contain approximately half the population but employ 37 percent of diocesan staff. The other 28 contain the remaining half and employ 63 percent. The larger dioceses have also experienced a smaller proportional increase in employees.
Yet their proposal is not simply to create larger dioceses exercising the same powers. They argue that dioceses are too numerous to operate efficiently but too remote to make detailed local decisions. They would move substantial authority to deaneries while organizing suitable shared services nationally.
Deaneries would become the principal budget holders, deciding how many clergy and lay workers they could support through congregational giving and allocated income from historic assets. National support would reflect independently assessed deprivation, ensuring that ministry in poorer communities did not depend entirely on their ability to raise money locally.
Deaneries would also take responsibility for clergy housing. Remaining suffragan bishops and archdeacons would normally undertake part-time parish ministry, keeping senior clergy directly involved in the circumstances their decisions affect.
The authors acknowledge that deaneries might decide they could no longer afford existing clergy numbers. They propose an insurance arrangement, administered through the Church Commissioners and financed by deanery premiums, to provide affected priests with perhaps two years of continued pay while they seek another appointment.
During an initial three-year transition, reductions would occur only through retirement or departure. Nevertheless, the proposal raises a serious question about clergy security. Greater local control might make deployment more responsive, but it could also expose ministry more directly to fluctuations in giving. The report recognizes that uncertainty could discourage vocations unless protection were credible.
Deaneries would also need people capable of managing budgets, property, and personnel. Asked by the *Church Times* about that requirement, Gill said competent volunteers or paid support would be necessary, with central assistance for more deprived areas.
“There is no objection in my mind to supporting necessary administration,” he said, “but only if those who pay for it also control it.” The unresolved question is whether the proposed system would reduce duplication or transfer it to hundreds of smaller bodies. The report offers a plan for reform, not a complete, independently costed operating model.
The authors recommend cutting nationally allocated strategic investment by at least three-quarters. Much of that money, together with existing support for low-income communities, would instead help finance deanery budgets.
They question whether strategic programs receive sufficiently clear public evaluation. In particular, they argue that claims of attendance growth must distinguish recovery after pandemic closures from additional participation attributable to investment. They also ask whether some new congregations attract existing worshippers from neighboring churches rather than increasing overall churchgoing. The report raises these possibilities; it does not establish their extent.
Gill and Craven accept that experimental investment will produce failures as well as successes. They want regular, independently verified reports identifying costs, results, and obligations remaining after initial grants expire. Their concern is that dioceses may undertake commitments that eventually require support from congregations receiving no direct benefit from the original investment.
Their discussion of episcopal expenditure also requires precision. They cite £53 million in 2025 for bishops’ and archbishops’ ministry, averaging roughly £500,000 per bishop. That is not an average salary: it includes stipends, offices, expenses, and accommodation-related costs. The distinction is essential when comparing institutional expenditure with the personal remuneration of parish priests.
Safeguarding has drawn the clearest institutional defense. The report identifies approximately 220 people working in diocesan safeguarding teams, representing between 150 and 200 full-time posts. It questions whether separate diocesan arrangements provide sufficient efficiency and consistency, especially when clergy move between jurisdictions.
The authors acknowledge the Church’s “shameful record” and explicitly distinguish their criticism of organizational arrangements from the necessity of safeguarding. They suggest that stronger national provision could avoid duplication and inconsistent practices.
A Church House spokesperson responded that the additional posts brought expertise in child protection and policing and were “vital in helping ensure the most vulnerable people within our communities are safe.” The spokesperson also cited existing national resource sharing and increased regional cooperation between dioceses.
Both questions require attention. Specialist safeguarding capacity may be indispensable while the way it is organized remains open to improvement. Equally, including specialist practitioners within a general count of administrators does not establish that their posts are unnecessary.
Any proposed replacement would therefore need to demonstrate that it preserved or improved protection. Savings alone would not establish that a different structure was better.
Some initial coverage has emphasized the report’s criticism of the 2030 net-zero target and Project Spire, the proposed £100 million response to historic links with African chattel enslavement. Those subjects occupy part of the report, but its broader argument concerns the allocation of money and authority throughout the Church.
On Project Spire, Gill and Craven accept that inherited assets have indirect links to slavery. They say they would welcome clear evidence of practical restorative results if legal obstacles to the project are overcome. Their financial objection concerns what must be forgone when resources are committed to a particular purpose.
They estimate that assigning £100 million of assets to the project would remove approximately £6 million in potential annual income available for other purposes. That calculation assumes a real investment return; it is not a guaranteed annual cash loss. Their underlying point is that funding one undertaking necessarily limits what can be spent elsewhere.
Their treatment of climate policy also needs qualification. They regard the 2030 target as an unrealistic burden on hard-pressed parishes. The Church’s published routemap, however, gives priority to larger, busier buildings and says most small rural churches already have very low carbon footprints: “the onus for action does not lie with them.” The national target should therefore not be described as imposing an identical reconstruction program on every parish church.
Church House’s response, reported on October 22, welcomed discussion without endorsing the proposed reductions. It stressed the difficulty of major restructuring, citing the creation of Leeds diocese in 2014 from Bradford, Ripon and Leeds, and Wakefield.
The report itself treats that merger cautiously. It records 75 staff across the predecessor dioceses in 2011 and 80 in the combined diocese in 2017. Its conclusion is that merging institutions does not automatically save money: responsibilities, staffing, and services must also change.
Supportive commentary has been more direct. In an article republished by Anglican Mainstream on October 24, Julian Mann argued that the report echoed concerns parish clergy had expressed for years. He recalled a Sheffield clergy meeting in 2019 at which suggestions for administrative reductions and diocesan mergers were dismissed while clergy cuts were discussed. His account is an attributed personal recollection, not an independently verified record of the meeting.
The report also arrives amid an existing national spending program intended to address some of the pressures it identifies. In July 2025, General Synod supported £1.6 billion in national distributions for 2026–28, a 36 percent increase over the preceding period. The plans included clergy wellbeing, ministry in deprived communities, safeguarding, and redress. Synod also supported further work on funding distribution and local stipendiary ministry. Those decisions preceded the report and should not be presented as responses to it.
Gill and Craven place their proposals within a long history of redistributing church assets. Nineteenth-century reforms redirected episcopal and cathedral resources toward pastoral provision. Twentieth-century changes equalized stipends and transferred glebe assets to diocesan control. Their point is that inherited financial arrangements have repeatedly changed when they no longer served the Church’s purposes.
Their own proposals require further examination. Expected savings need to be calculated, clergy protections defined, and deanery capacity tested. Neither administrative reductions nor diocesan mergers can substitute for an account of how Christian faith is taught, practiced, and passed to another generation.
The report nevertheless presents a concrete challenge. If parish ministry is the Church’s first priority, that priority must govern decisions about staffing, property, subsidies, and authority—not merely appear in statements of intent. The dispute is not simply about how much money the Church possesses. It is about who decides how that money is used, and whether those decisions sustain the ministry the institution exists to provide.