Research and Evidence
This section of our website contains links to documents, statistics and reports which can help with your objection to pastoral reorganisation.
Ministry Statistics 2026
Summary statistics of the number of clergy serving in the Church of England, including total numbers in stipendiary and self-supporting ministry, age profiles, gender splits, and the breakdown by diocese
New in the North
This New in the North report was commissioned to give a sense of developments with new worshipping communities in 2023 and to inform discussions about helpful next steps.
Timelines of Pastoral Reorganisation
Links to Truro, Leicester, Sheffield, Lincoln and Liverpool timelines and maps
Church Closers’ Charter (GS2222)
Articles by Emma Thompson and Fr Christopher Johnson on the Church Closer’ Charter.
Contact with Local Churches Poll – Church of England
Savanta ComRes surveyed 2,073 UK adults aged 18+ online between 1st and 3rd July 2022. Data were weighted to be representative of the UK population by age, gender, region and social grade.
13 November 2022
The House of Good: The economic and social value of church buildings to the UK | National Churches Trust
For the very first time, our House of Good report quantifies the economic and social value of all church buildings to the UK. Not just the bricks and mortar but the welfare and wellbeing they create in our communities.
In 2020, our ground-breaking report demonstrated that the total economic and social value that church buildings generate in the UK is at least £12.4 billion per year which averages around £300,000 per church. That is roughly equal to the total NHS spending on mental health in England in 2018.
But our latest 2021 research now shows that the annual social and economic value of church buildings to the UK is worth around £55 billion. This sum, calculated using the latest HM Treasury Green Book guidance, includes the contribution churches make to wellbeing and to local economies.
Bishop Seeley tells Synod of short- and long-term financial pressures | the Church Times
“Pressed by Mr Lunn about whether the Archbishops’ Council recognised that dioceses were not “trying to undermine the mission of the Church”, but had policies “dictated by their finance or lack thereof”, Bishop Seeley agreed: “One of the things that is going on here is we have got a long-term Vision and Strategy and short-term pressures around finance, and those two timetables don’t meet. . .
“We need to try to find a way to mitigate the current situation that is prompting dioceses to consider cutting posts . . . through some form of financial provision.” It remained unclear exactly how many posts dioceses were cutting, he said.”
The Future of the UK’s Church Buildings | National Churches Trust
“People want churches, not digital worship, new consultation shows. With Easter approaching, an overwhelming majority of people think that churches are still needed, despite the growth of digital worship during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the results of a consultation about the future of the UK’s church buildings released by The National Churches Trust.”
The Chote Report 2022 | Independent Review of Lowest Income Communities funding and Strategic Development Funding
“Projects awarded funding between 2014 and 2021 were expected to create 89,375 disciples; to date [Februrary 2022],12,705 have been “witnessed”. In the time period, dioceses have spent £74.5 million of the £176.7 million of SDF grants awarded by the SIB.” Note: In the recent Annual Report for the SMIIB (successor to SDF) 2023, GS1383 it was noted that grants of £198m had been awarded from 2014 onwards. This report gave a ‘headline’ figure of 29,000 new participants in these projects, which is still very far below the 89,375 originally expected. However, the report itself questions even this figure. Projects used their own criteria to decide what participation meant. The report notes (on p. 24) that if a tighter definition of what it means to participate had been used, the approximate figure would have been more like 19,000, and that if one assumed as in research studies that only 40% of these 29,000 participants were de/unchurched, then the figure would be 16,000.
Stronger As One? Amalgamations and church attendance | CofE
“From this inspection and statistical analysis of the standardised attendance data prepared by Voas and Watt, it is clear that the relationship between growth in standardised attendance and benefice structure is complex. …
The effect on standardised attendance of benefice structure is clearly complex and requires further investigation (See Going Deeper for further investigation); work with clergy numbers and diocesan resources may be considered.”
From Anecdote to Evidence
The findings show that single church units under one leader are more likely to grow than when churches are grouped together.
Going Deeper: Church attendance statistics and clergy deployment | CofE
“The variety of factors that affect change within a congregation’s Statistics for Mission figures is enormous. Voas and Watt touched on many of them in their report. In this document, we have shown that the location of a parish, the congregation size, and the population change in the parish all have statistically significant effects on a congregation’s growth. These are not factors that we can change, but being able to partition out the effects of these factors, we can look in more detail at the effect of other factors such as benefice structure and clergy numbers.
The change in the number of clergy per church in the parish has a significant effect on growth in that parish. Where there is an increase in stipendiary clergy, there is a greater likelihood of growth, a decrease in stipendiary clergy is more likely, on average, to lead to decline. ”
Churches, COVID-19, and communities | The Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture, University of York
“Normally churches act as a ‘National Wellbeing Service’. They are vital community hubs, providing cradle-to-grave activities for everyone to access and are usually key places of comfort and refuge in times of crisis.
“They offer a lifeline to many and provide an almost invisible infrastructure of care, support and socialisation for people of all faiths and none across the whole country. It wasn’t until much of this disappeared overnight, because of enforced church closures, that its full importance to individuals and communities was realised.”
Ministry Statistics 2020
“At the end of 2020 there were nearly 20,000 active clergy serving in the Church of England, around 7,000 of whom are likely retired clergy continuing to serve. This report explores various characteristics of those clergy, including gender, age, ethnicity, working hours and roles.”
Is this the solution to our missional challenge? | Psephizo
New ResPublica Report. ‘Holistic Mission: Social action and the Church of England’
“Launching on Wednesday 10th July in Lambeth Palace, with keynote remarks from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Justin Welby and the Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd MP, the report will demonstrate that the Church has a truly unique place in English society, and is the key to unlocking a revolution in both voluntary and statutory public service provision. The report argues that we need new institutions for the 21st century, and that the Church is well-placed to become one.”
Restoring the Value of Parishes
A research paper written by Esmé Partridge for the think tank Civitas, diagnoses what has gone wrong with the Church of England in recent years, and makes the case for returning to what works: supporting local clergy to continue serving their communities via parish churches.