Wasted Money in a Diminishing Church: Report Warns Church of England Faces Financial Disaster

Two men sat down with the Church of England's own numbers, and the numbers would not sit still. In 2005, the dioceses employed about 1,300 staff.

By 2025, that figure was about 2,300. Over the same years, the congregations those staff were meant to serve kept getting smaller.

The men were Canon Robin Gill and Professor John Craven. Gill is emeritus professor of applied theology at the University of Kent and a former theological adviser to Archbishops Runcie and Carey. Craven is an economist who sat on the Archbishops' Council from 2006 to 2013, according to Anglican Watch.

Their report, Wasted Money in a Diminishing Church, was published by the Centre for Anglican History and Theology at the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University. The Religion Media Centre reported its findings on October 23, 2026, and the Church Times covered the report the same week, according to Charisma and Anglican Watch.

Gill and Craven do not write like outsiders throwing stones. They write like people who have sat in the rooms where the budgets are set, and who believe the current shape of the Church cannot pay for itself much longer.

Gill and Craven argue that the church now needs "ruthless" action to become financially sustainable, as reported by Church Times via Anglican Watch.

Church of England Dioceses Deficits: How Many Are in the Red?

The deficit figures need care, because different counts measure different years. A 2024 review of diocesan finances, cited by Anglican Watch, found aggregate diocesan deficits of 29 million pounds in 2022, projected to more than double to 62 million pounds in 2024.

That review found 18 dioceses running deficits in 2019, 30 in 2022, and 35 expected to do so from 2023 onward, Anglican Watch reports. Half of all dioceses faced some short-term liquidity risk, and 23 held less than three months of cash reserves.

Newspaper coverage of the Gill and Craven report put the current figure higher still. The Daily Mail, as reported by ZeroHedge, found that 37 out of 42 dioceses now run deficits, compared with 18 in 2019. This article presents that figure as the Daily Mail's, not as a figure from the 2024 review, because the two counts come from different years and different measures.

What the counts agree on is the direction. Whichever year is chosen, more dioceses are spending more than they bring in, and the gap is not closing on its own.

Church of England Staff Numbers: 1,300 to 2,300 While Attendance Fell

The staffing rise is the report's sharpest fact. Diocesan staff numbers nearly doubled this century, from about 1,300 in 2005 to roughly 2,300 in 2025, according to the Religion Media Centre and Anglican Watch.

Over the same period, a Diocesan Finances Review found attendance down 25 to 40 percent in every diocese since 2015, Anglican Watch reports. Charisma, citing Church Times, adds that parish-share income was down nearly 30 percent before the 2020 pandemic, and that the number of ordinands preparing for ministry has fallen roughly 40 percent.

Save the Parish calculated that full-time stipendiary posts have fallen 28 percent since 2000, Anglican Watch reports, and that many dioceses now employ one staff member for every 3.5 parish clergy. The pattern Gill and Craven describe is a dangerous cycle: declining attendance means smaller congregations and less giving, fewer clergy then minister across larger areas, and pressure builds on parishes that are already struggling.

The report also criticised two large spending commitments, as reported in Daily Mail coverage via ZeroHedge: a net zero carbon target for 2030, backed by a 190 million pound fund for eco-friendly renovations, and Project Spire, a 100 million pound fund spread over nine years linked to the Church's historic ties to the transatlantic slave trade. The authors are quoted as calling such projects costly and extravagant in the eyes of congregations. This article attributes those characterisations to the report as covered by the Daily Mail, and does not present them as the Church's own view.

Wasted Money in a Diminishing Church Recommendations: Fewer Dioceses, Local Budgets

Gill and Craven propose cutting the number of dioceses and diocesan bishops to around 30, from 40, according to the Religion Media Centre. Charisma reports the same proposal as reducing the number of dioceses to around 30 by 2032. The report also proposes reducing diocesan staff and handing deaneries control of budgets and clergy deployment, Anglican Watch reports.

There is a counterweight in the figures that should not be left out. Preliminary figures cited in Daily Mail coverage via ZeroHedge show attendance rising for a fifth straight year, to an estimated 707,000 in a typical week in 2025, up 0.7 percent, though still below the 854,000 recorded in 2019. A Church can be shrinking over a decade and still see a small rise in a single year, and both facts can be true at once.

The national endowment is also large. Anglican Watch reports that the Church Commissioners' endowment was worth 11.6 billion pounds at the end of 2025 after an 8 percent return for the year, the seventeenth consecutive year of positive returns. The Commissioners spent 282.4 million pounds on charitable purposes in 2025, including 202.8 million pounds supporting dioceses and local churches and 52.9 million pounds supporting bishops' and archbishops' ministry.

The Church's response, as reported by Charisma from Church Times, was measured. The Church told Church Times the report was a "wide-ranging and thoughtful" contribution to the conversation about the pressures facing the denomination, while defending the importance of areas such as safeguarding. Gill and Craven's warning, in other words, landed in a Church that says it is already listening, even as its dioceses keep spending more than they recieve.

The money questions now sit alongside the parish questions in other coverage, including the King inaugurating the new General Synod on November 17, Southwell Minster facing closure over a 20 million pound repair bill, church charities welcoming energy relief in the UK Budget while saying the poverty fight is not over, and a church closed for 15 years opening its doors again in northern England. Each story asks, in its own place, what a parish can still afford to be.

Gill and Craven have put a choice on the table in plain numbers: fewer dioceses, fewer central staff, and budgets held closer to the parishes, or a financial position that keeps getting worse. Whether the Church takes that choice, and what it costs the parishes either way, is the question the next round of debates will have to answer, and the ledger will not wait politely while it decides.

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.