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General Assembly 2007: Kirk members are giving more
- offerings up nearly 4 per cent on last year
The report to the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland from the Stewardship and Finance Committee
includes the following:
Christian giving
While the communicant membership of the Church of Scotland
continues to decline, the offerings of members and adherents
continue to increase.
- Offerings, excluding tax recoveries, amounted to
£58,886,196 in 2006 - an increase of 3.72%.
- Tax recoveries from Gift Aid amounted to £10,806,674
in 2006 – an increase of 4.62%.
- Total offerings, including tax recoveries, amounted
to £69,692,870 in 2006 – an increase of
3.86%.
The committee urges congregations to encourage members
and adherents to review annually the level of their
Christian giving of money.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Budget in March
2007 indicated that the basic rate of income tax will
be reduced from 22% to 20% from April 2008. This would
reduce the present tax recovery on Gift Aid offerings
by almost £1.2 million.
Stewardship
An external report to the Council of Assembly’s
Funding Forum affirms the teaching and promotion of Christian
stewardship as the most effective way of generating income
from the members of the Church. The work of the Church’s
stewardship consultants is strongly commended in this
report.
The report states that stewardship programmes are most
effective in financial terms (i) when they concentrate
on the giving of money and do not include the giving
of time and talent, and (ii) when they are undertaken
on our paid consultancy basis, with the stewardship
consultant involved at every stage of the planning and
delivery of the programme. The report also places great
emphasis on the need for Christian giving to be presented
positively as something which enables the sharing of
the gospel through the worship, fellowship, mission
and service of the Church.
The committee welcomes this endorsement of its work
and the opportunity presented by the Council of Assembly
in implementing the recommendation of the Funding Forum
that, on a pilot basis, two presbyteries be invited
to encourage all their congregations to engage in a
stewardship programme focussing solely on the giving
of money, with the paid consultancy level of support
from our stewardship consultants being offered free
of charge. If these programmes are fruitful, it is the
intention of the Council of Assembly that they will
be rolled out in other presbyteries in future years.
Congregational contributions 2006
Congregations contributed £42,836,513 to their ministries
and mission allocations in 2006 – 98.3% of the total
requested.
Late contributions in the following year tend to cover
much of the shortfall in payments.
Ministries and nission allocations
Each congregation now receives a single ministries and
mission allocation. This year 85% goes to the Parish Ministries
Fund, and 15% to the Mission and Renewal Fund. The allocation
is calculated on the basis of average unrestricted income
in the preceding three years. 11% of congregations, which
have average unrestricted income in excess of £100,000
per annum, are being asked to contribute 27% of the total
allocation.
406 charges (congregations or linked congregations)
are meeting the full cost of a parish minister with
at least ten years experience through their allocations
and supporting 769 charges which are not able to meet
this full cost.
Proposals for a fair allocation system for congregations
which are part of single congregation Local Ecumenical
Partnerships have been prepared by six different denominations.
These are being presented to the General Assembly for
approval by the Church of Scotland.
Charity Regulation in Scotland
The Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act came
into force in April 2006, and the Charity Accounts (Scotland)
Regulations apply to accounting periods commencing on
or after 1 April 2006. These measures mean that the General
Assembly’s Regulations for Congregational Finance
and Presbytery Finance need considerable amendment. New
regulations are proposed in the committee’s supplementary
report.
The committee recognises that congregational treasurers
and presbytery treasurers will need advice, training
and support as they come to terms with new requirements
which have originated with the Office of the Scottish
Charity Regulator (OSCR).
Ends
nrga/27/04/07
Thursday 26 April 2007
Note to news desk
For further details, please contact the Rev Gordon Jamieson,
head of Stewardship, on telephone number 0131 240 2226.
A full copy of the report is available on our General
Assembly pages online
here.
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