Slash spending on bishops’ houses, says task group

From The Church Times-

EXPENDITURE on bishops’ houses is out of control, an official task group has concluded.
The funding for see houses is set every three years. The total spent in 2002-04 was £11 million. In 2008-10, it is forecast to be £21 million. The average maintenance cost of some bishops’ houses is now well over £50,000 a year.

The figures come in a document prepared by a task group on spending, chaired by the Bishop of Lon don, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres. Other members include the Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Revd Andrew Urquhart, and the First Church Estates Commissioner, Andreas Whittam Smith.

The group acknowledges that a number of the houses are Grade I and Grade II listed. It also accepts that much of the expenditure is a result of work on office space in many of the houses, which are used by diocesan staff as well as by the bishop. Such expenditure seldom adds to the value of the house.

It concludes, none the less, that the money allocated in 2011-13 should be capped at £15 million, with a view to bringing it down to no more than £10 million in 2014-16. “There is a compelling need to bring control over this area of expend iture,” the group says.

Official responsibility for the see houses rests with the Church Commissioners, and their board of governors is discussing future strategy later this year.

The task group says: “Our view is that it has no option but to think radically about the future. Past reviews have created much debate but little real change. We think that the time has come when tinkering with the portfolio will not be enough.”


More here-

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=97023