[Magdalen] Proposed Property Settlement in Episcopal Litigation Turned...

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Roger
 
Amen to that. For example St Germans had a quote to put in a bog standard  
(if you'll forgive the pun) and a kitchenette ina Grade 1 listed medieval  
Church. The architect got us four quotes. The lowest was £75,000 (seventy 
five  thousand) and the highest £96,000 (ninety six thousand). 
 
The praish has about 30-40 people on a Sunday just to give you an idea of  
size.
 
As the architects get about 11% of the final fee for installation the  
architect had no incentive to bring the price down. So we bought off our  
architect and plan to do the whole lot for £25,000 (twenty five thousand) and 
are doing it ourselves
 
The trouble with the Church maintenance is that we can only use architects  
who have been approved by the Diocese Advisory Committee who advise the  
Chancellor whether or not to grant a faculty - (and you can't put a nail in 
the  wall without a faculty!). And the DAC is stacked with approved architects 
- and  as it is a closed shop - no Architect will work for a fee other than 
as a  percentage of the final fee - regardless of the work put in. The day 
an  architect charges their hourly rate instead of the exorbitant fees is 
the day  repairing medieval church buildings.
 
Blessings
Martin
 
 
In a message dated 17/06/2015 03:01:45 GMT Daylight Time,  
roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com writes:

I would  like to add a bit more detail to Martin's comments about 
fund-raising in the  C/E.  Historically C/E congregations did not need to pay that 
much to  support their clergy.  I think the tipping point on that was about  
1973.  Until then on the whole clergy got their income from a combination  of 
endowments of various kinds, fees for weddings and funerals and what the  
faithful put in the plate on Easter Day.  Thanks to OPEC inflation really  
started to kick in about that time.  The revenue from endowments did not  rise 
in line with inflation, and there was a simultaneous realisation that  many 
clergy were not really getting a living wage.  

This meant  that the congregations had to start contributing significantly 
to the  maintenance of the clergy. This hit hard because of the rate of 
inflation and  the effect of starting from a false zero.  It was rather like 
those  graphs we have seen where the lower part of the y axis isn't shown so 
the  slope of the increase is exaggerated.  Back in the day there was no  
proper system of clergy pensions either - priests carried on working until  they 
dropped, sometimes in a smaller parish.  About 50 years ago there  was a 
recognition that clergy ought to be entitled to a pension so they could  
retire and this was funded from the Church Commissioners' endowments.   The basis 
for calculating pension entitlements was determined by General  Synod, but 
they assumed that the Commissioners would meet the bill.
Come  the 1990's and there was a collapse in property prices and the 
Commissioners'  assets slumped in value.  This prompted an actuarial assessment of 
their  liabilities for clergy pensions.  This assessment revealed that the  
assets were almost totally committed to maintenance of the bishops, 
pensions  earned by service to date and a few other things.  Pensions for future  
service would need to be funded by current congregations, leading to another  
sharp rise in what they have to pay. The result is that today's 
congregations  have, as Martin observes,  to pretty well cover all the cost of paying  
their clergy and the pension contribution.
Aside from that is the  maintenance of the church building.  In many rural 
areas this is an old  building, and I mean old in British terms, not just 
American.  Many of  them are medieval while a lot of the others are 19th 
century. Repairs and  maintenance are expensive, sometimes requiring specialist 
(and hence even more  expensive) workers and using techniques that are 
acceptable to the  conservation lobby. The regular congregation in some of these 
churches may  struggle to get into double figures.  They need to fundraise, 
and attract  money from non-attending villagers who value the church as part 
of the  village.
The Church is paying to maintain what is officially recognized as  part of 
the nation's heritage.  I believe that the majority of buildings  listed as 
being of historical or architectural interest are churches - most of  them 
ones which are not visited by hrdes of people but which the Church has to  
maintain.

Roger