Diocesan Synod vote in support of 2025 budget
At a meeting of Diocesan Synod on Saturday, members voted in support of the 2025 budget.
The Truro Diocesan Board of Finance Ltd has planned for a deficit of £3.973 million for 2025. While it is recognised that a deficit budget may raise concerns, this is a clear choice made by the diocese, through Synod, as part of our ongoing work on changing patterns of ministry, engaging with children and young people and being with and for those in need.
Bishop Hugh Nelson, Acting Bishop of Truro, said: “We want to reassure people that this has been a conscious decision to enable us to support locally developed deanery plans, from our decisions to use reserves to support parishes rather than grow our balance sheet and from a rebalancing of our shared resources towards communities that are experiencing deprivation.”
These decisions were supported by the Diocesan Synod, made up of clergy and lay people from across all 12 deaneries, who voted to accept the Asset Strategy in 2023 and have voted in support of this budget as well with 40 in favour (77%), nine (17%) voting to refer back to the Bishop’s Diocesan Council for further work and three members abstaining.
Bishop Hugh added: “Active and engaged Diocesan Synod members are vital to the work of the diocese. We are grateful for the measured and challenging questions posed by members – particularly those put by Patrick Newberry – and we remain committed to responding openly to such questions through Synods and the other proper channels.”
Deaneries have created their own plans, and the diocesan budget is directly linked to them and the work needed to support them. It takes time and costs money to implement plans and make changes, and we have made the decision to ensure that additional costs are not passed on to parishes.
We are committed to investing in mission through the deanery plans. We are committed to our clergy and to providing them with homes that are modern, economically and environmentally friendly and fit for purpose. We are committed to supporting deaneries in their work with children, young people and families and those in need.
Simon Cade, Diocesan Secretary, said: “Those commitments need support and that does mean we need to grow our central team, which is one of the smallest central teams of any diocese. We have sourced national funding where possible to offset this cost and we have been able to use some of the savings made by downsizing offices.”
The 2025 budget reconfirms our commitment to maintaining and where possible, increasing clergy numbers in line with the deanery plans. This budget also sees the use of reserves to keep the Ministry and Mission Fund call to parishes down. Bishop Hugh added: “We are not asking more of parishes than they themselves have said they can give in their deanery plans.
“We are all working together, as a whole diocese, for the fruitful and sustainable future that we all long to see, and this budget is part of making that happen.”
