This part of the website gives details of the finances of Chester Diocesan Board of Finance.

NEWS

Annual Report and Accounts 2008
Following approval by Bishops Council and Diocesan Synod a copy of the 2008 Annual report and accounts for the DBF can be downloaded from the Accounts and Estimates page. This year we have improved the design and formating and adopted public benefit reporting. We hope you find them useful.

Accounts and Estimates pages

Clergy Pension Consultation documents
The following documents are available in support of the 2009 consultations on Clergy pensions. (All are Adobe pdf files)

Clergy Pensions - Slides from meeting 25 September 2009
Clergy Pensions The Facts
Clergy Pensions - Consultation Paper
Clergy Pensions - Benefit Illustrations

Slides and Handouts - Recent training events
You can download the slides for the PCC as Charity part of the event here (3MB Powerpoint file)

Handouts can be downloaded as adobe pdf files here

Accounts thresholds

The threshold for Receipts and Payments accounts has been raised from £100,000 to £250,000.

The threshold for audit has also been raised from £250,000 to £500,000 (unless assets are greater than £3.26m)

This means in most cases PCCs will be able to prepare receipts and payments accounts and have them independently examined for the year end 31 December 2009 and following. Further details can be founds using the link below

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/investigations/sorp/scsorp.asp

Public Benefit
The Charity Commission has published an example Annual report for a PCC on it's website. This is designed to help PCCs in reporting for the public benefit. This will be a requirement from next year. It gives examples of the sort of things the Charity Commission believes demonstrate public benefit and we do not anticipate PCCs having trouble meeting the requirement.
Click here

Parish Shares for 2009
The parish share assessments for 2009 have been placed on the parish share pages. Click here

Chester DBF Estimates for 2009
Chester DBF estimates for 2009 have been placed on the website following approval by Bishops Council. The estimates include a 3.8% rise in the standard Parish Share requested.
Accounts and Estimates

Bank Deposits

Following the recent collapse of Icelandic banks, a number of parishes are asking questions about the security of bank deposits, and this message (from the Financial Policy unit of the Archbishops' Council and Church Commissioners) aims to provide an update on the situation.

We understand that the majority of parish and diocesan deposits are held in the Church of England Deposit Account run by CCLA (formerly known as the CBF Deposit Account). This has over £1 billion of deposits, which is spread amongst about 40 carefully chosen institutions. The Fund is currently AAA rated (triple A) by Fitch, an independent rating agency which reviews the rating weekly. Whilst the funds deposited are not covered by the FSCS compensation scheme, because it is a collective investment fund, both the spread of deposits and the selection process mean that risk is spread. We have been informed that no part of the fund is deposited with any of the Icelandic banks.

We are aware that some parishes, however, have money on deposit at Icelandic banks. The sums are not large in the context of total national Church funds, but obviously the amounts involved are significant to them. The Archbishops' Council is supporting voluntary sector moves led by NCVO and ACEVO to encourage the Government to offer protection to charities who have lost money in this way. In support of this, we would be very keen to hear if you know of any of your parishes who are affected. The Charity Commission is also requesting details of any charities affected by the failure of the Icelandic banks, which can be emailed to them at: enquiries@charitycommission.gsi.gov.uk.

The information provided by the FSCS about its compensation scheme does not specifically mention charities. However, the Charity Commission has issued guidance that charities should be covered by the Scheme to the same extent (ie up to £50,000) as other organisations and individuals. Virtually all parishes would be covered by this, as the most relevant exceptions for any organisation seeking to claim under the guarantee scheme are that it exceeds two or more of the following limits: (i) it employs more than 50 people, and/or (ii) it has income of more than £6.5 million per year, and/or (iii) it has net assets of more than £3.26 million. The Charity Commission guidance can be found on: http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/news/fincomp.asp. Whilst the Charity Commission website also states a lower £1.4 million balance sheet limit that applies to the FSCS guarantee scheme for unincorporated associations, s.3 of the Parochial Church Councils (Powers) Measure 1956 provides that "every council shall be a body corporate", which means that they are statutory corporations, with the result that the higher limits relevant to companies should apply to PCCs.

Registration of PCCs with the Charity Commission

PCCs with an income greater than £100,000 will need to start registering with the Charity Commission from 1 October 2008. The Charity Commission has asked us to phase the process and therefore we will be encouraging Chester Diocese parishes to register May to July 2009.

We do not expect any major difficulties with the process and helpful guidance has been supplied by the Charity Commission and Central Church to assist PCCs registering.

We see the registration as a positive and welcome step.

Further information can be found here.

Budget Changes to Gift Aid

In his Budget speech on 12 March 2008, the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, announced a transitional rate of relief of 22 per cent to cover the tax years 2008/09 to 2010/11.

There are also a few simplifications in the process.

Further details including how the transitional rate can be claimed can be found at
http://www.parishresources.org.uk/giftaid.htm

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget2008/bn52.pdf

Chester DBF Statutory accounts for 2007
Chester DBF Statutory accounts for 2007 have been placed on the website following approval by Bishops Council and Diocesan Synod. The accounts include the trustees report for the year and give an overview of the work carried out by Chester Diocesan Board of Finance.
Accounts and Estimates

Clergy Pensions
Shaun Farrell, Secretary & Chief Executive Church of England Pensions Board gave a presentation entitled "Pensions and Retirement Housing", at Hartford on 24 September 2007.

A Powerpoint file of his presentation can be downloaded here (166 KB)

Presentation MP3 file here (8MB)

Questions and Answers MP3 file MP3 file here (9MB)

Annual membership and finance forms 2008

Copies of the forms for 2008 have been placed on the links page

The new parish share system
The Parish Share is a contribution by parishes in the Diocese towards the cost of the provision and support of Parish mission and ministry.

A new system for calculating the contributions requested was introduced from 2006.
Click here