About Us
The Board of Finance is responsible for managing all aspects of finance for the Diocese of Manchester, much like an accounts department in a large firm.
It manages the income for the Church and monitors the expenditure of all the Boards, Councils and Committees in the diocese.
The Finance Team’s key objectives are to support the Trustees in ensuring that annual budgets are set on a break-even basis (subject to maintaining free reserves at a pre-agreed target level) and to keep increases in Parish Share to a minimum so that funds can be spent on local mission activity.
The broad strategy for achieving these objectives is to maintain the sound financial structure needed to enable the continued support of clergy through the payment of stipends, managing parsonages and ministerial housing, and by providing other facilities and resources in support of the ministry of both clergy and lay people in parishes across the diocese.
The key areas of expenditure can be summarised as:
- Contributions to national church institutions mainly by grant support
- Mission and ministry in the parishes (including all clergy training, housing, stipends, pension and all other expenditure supporting parish-based ministry)
- Specific diocesan projects.
Finance administers the Parish Share scheme on behalf of Synod and ensures that robust systems are in place to enable Parish Share receipts and allocations to be accurately recorded. We provide an accounting service to support the work of Church House Company. We also ensure compliance with statutory legislation such as the Companies Act and Charities Act.
The Finance Team is responsible for managing the Glebe investments which are held in agricultural land, commercial and residential land, and buildings.
