press release 3 September: Rosie Slater-Carr appointed Chief Executive of Church Commissioners for England
Rosie Slater-Carr has been appointed the new Chief Executive Officer of the Church Commissioners for England, which supports the Church of England’s mission and ministry across the country.
As Chief Executive, she is responsible for overseeing the Church Commissioners’ £11.6bn endowment fund. The fund contributes about a fifth of the Church’s running costs every year, as well as providing a range of vital services to the Church.
Rosie has been Interim Chief Executive since March, having stepped up from her previous role of Chief Operating Officer (COO)…
…Rosie joined the Church Commissioners as Chief Operating Officer in 2020, having previously worked as Chief Information Officer at the British Red Cross, as IT Director at The Children’s Society, and as a part-time Lecturer in Quantitative Methods and Philosophy of Science at Birkbeck College, University of London. She also worked at IBM and PA Consulting.
She holds a degree in PPE from Oxford and an MSC in Cognitive Science and Informatics.
As background to this, it seems that we failed to report the resignation of her predecessor on 30 March this year. John Worth had been in post for less than a year. Here are the relevant press releases
John Worth steps down as Chief Executive of the Church Commissioners
John Worth appointed Chief Executive of Church Commissioners for England
In August, “Church Times” reported “Ruth Dickinson, who has led the senior team at Lambeth Palace since June 2025 as executive director (interim), will take up a six-month secondment in November to work on a new strategy for the Church Commissioners.”
Is there a connection, and is ++Sarah aiming to change The Commissioners priorities? Personally, I hope so. I have no knowledge beyond what I have read however.
Maybe I need to get out more, but why is there a senior team at Lambeth Palace and why does it need an executive director to lead it?
The National Governance Measure – which was several years worth of detailed work – would have changed the role of the Church Commissioners, but that has been sent back by the Ecclesiastical Committee. Some rethinking is inevitably involved when a change as big as that – which people will have been preparing for – is parked. Also, given the pushback in General Synod on the conclusions of the last triennium funding group, there is a need to review the setting of priorities (the Governance Measure would have clarified roles and responsibilities, and ensured that General Synod was consulted at an… Read more »
An IT manager has been put in charge of £11.6 bn of Church funds.
Words fail me.
Don’t worry, she studied PPE, and that worked out very well for various PM’s and government ministers.
Well, if she managed to press the wrong button and send my parish a couple of million I wouldn’t complain…
There is always a silver lining !
Is she responsible for overseeing the fund, or is this .misleading and obfuscational? If she is then where does that leave the trustees?
The trustees are explained here: https://www.churchofengland.org/about/governance/national-church-institutions/church-commissioners-england/who-we-are
The structure of the staff is explained here:
https://www.churchofengland.org/about/governance/national-church-institutions/church-commissioners-england/who-we-are/leadership
Investment management is the responsibility of the Chief Investment Officer
Homeless Anglican
Regarding your extravagant claim that I am making a “dangerous” allegation in observing that proven competence may not be the only criteria used in this appointment – I am doing nothing of the sort.
You need to get out more if you are not aware of the fact that considerations other than proven competence are adopted by public institutions when recruiting staff.
Peter,
Can you say more about the considerations you believe are at play? What I find ‘extravagant’ is that you’re referring to the interim CEO and former COO as an ‘IT manager’. I think you should be clear whether your suspicion of Ms Slater-Carr is on the basis of her employment background, or simply that she is a woman.
It would have been nice if they had appointed somebody with actual experience of actual parish ministry.
Is that really too much to ask.
The £12 billion was not gifted by the tooth fairy. It originated in the parishes.
(If you look at the training and prior experience of the person appointed then IT is clearly their basic functionality. A perfectly respectable profession – just not parochial ministry)
I don’t think (but am happy to be corrected) there’s any history of appointing as the Church Commissioners CEO someone “with actual experience of parish ministry” by which I assume you mean a former parish priest. So to do so now would be an innovation of a different kind.
Clergy are regularly appointed to run major charities.
Clergy are carefully selected, the recipients of extensive training, in a role that demands stamina, people skills, strategic thinking and much else.
If the Church Commissioners see IT managment skills as “transferable” the same principle should apply to clergy.
You mean a parish priest with experience of managing £12bn?
Thank you for your comments. It takes a huge lack of any grace to be so relentlessly censorious. I will take your advice and get out more. Its time for me to step away from Thinking Anglicans. Thanks Peter for driving me away.
What is it with people “leaving” Thinking Anglicans because I have said something so unbearable they are left with no other option.
Have you seen some of the things that are published and said to and about me on this site ??
Chelmsford Diocese has just appointed a practising Catholic as Diocesan Secretary. Doubtless I should be full of ecumenical joy at this news and regard it as a Great Leap Forward in interchurch relations. Some of my best friends are Catholic. I attended a Catholic mass earlier this year and two last year. However, I find it curious that a member of a church which holds Anglican orders to be invalid should be appointed. Or is the validity of orders a trivial matter that only boring pedants like me worry about? I am also so behind the times that I think… Read more »
William Nye came to the Church of England via the Cabinet Office and a job as Prince Charles’ principal private secretary. So your diocesan secretary is not breaking new ground in her CV.
Whether William’s appointment was a success is a contested question.
Was Mr Nye a member of a church which required him to believe that Anglican orders are null and void for ever?
I attended theological college with Rosie Slater-Carr’s then-husband who was training for ordination (I do not know if they are still married – family details are not mentioned in news of her appointment – but have no reason to doubt it). At the very least, therefore, Rosie has experience of living in a residential Anglican theological college and being the spouse of an ordained minister. I can’t comment on any specific parish involvement or anything beyond that.
I have a friend who has been married to a doctor for many years. I would not therefore ask him to provide me with a diagnosis of a medical ailment.
Being married to a doctor is not the same as being a doctor. The same is true of clergy.
Simon Bravery, I’d prefer them to have appointed the best applicant available for this post. I believe the Diocese of Manchester did the same some years ago when appointing a Roman Catholic. Perhaps the person appointed doesn’t believe Anglican orders are invalid. It is not required of Roman Catholics and Pope Francis considered matter as still being studied. If Pope Leo XIII’s teaching on this matter were to apply to Church musicians, it would create a vacancy at Westminster Abbey and another at Liverpool Cathedral, whose director of music is the son of a Catholic Deacon and the husband of… Read more »
I have worked in a number of dioceses and can recall one where the Comms Director was a Methodist. Very good at comms and utterly committed to the job, but really struggled at times to ‘get’ the nuances and ways of the CofE. I’m afraid it showed. Likewise a Diocesan Secretary from a different denomination in another. It is laudable. But part of being the best person for job is surely coming with a thorough understanding of the organisation or church they are working for. It is not to do with ecumenism. And some may think this sounds insular. I… Read more »
Does it work both ways? How many senior officials in the RC church are not practicing Catholics?
I used to work as clerk to the governors for Catholic, Anglican, one Jewish and other schools. The difference in ethos between the two churches was very clear.
The RC diocese insisted the Head, Deputy Head, Head of RE and the Chair and Vice- Chair were all RC. The C of E diocese appointed a practising Sikh as foundation governor.
Thank you, Simon and David. I readily concede that the appearance of institutional similarity and structure between RC and C of E can be extremely misleading. The structures may look the same, but how they operate in practice can be as different as night from day. I’m left wondering whether what might be perceived as narrowminded behaviour in the RC system ought to be replicated simply because the RC‘s do it that way: ergo, “we ought to be narrowminded too”. “Tit for tat” isn’t a good enough ecumenical motive, surely. I’ll assume there is no appetite, after all, for dismissing… Read more »
I have asked myself 2 questions: 1. What does a DS do? 2. What religious beliefs or affiliations are needed to do it? It is tempting, if perhaps unfair, to say the role of Chelmsford’s DS is to manage decline. Diocesan Synod voted some years ago to reduce the number of stipendiary posts by (if memory serves) 61. I imagine that the DS plays a large part in deciding where the axe should fall. The main requirement is the skin of a pachyderm to cope with the reaction of parishioners who learn they are going to have to share their… Read more »
Ms Slater-Carr has actually been interim Chief Executive twice – on ether side of the brief tenure of the last Chief Exec. So nearly a year of experience in the role actually.
I have never suggested she had no experience, David. The point is she has clearly been appointed in preference to people who will have had vasty more experience.
If you were having brain surgery, would you want your surgeon to have twelve months experience or twenty years experience ?.
We all know experience matters, for some reason we have decided to pretend otherwise
Peter. I was not responding to you actually. Just noting the press release could have said more. But you continue campaign here. ‘I have never suggested she had no experience’. Well as good as. Reducing her significant experience and qualifications to an ‘IT manager’ for a start? Quite apart from what you are implying about the lack of integrity and professionalism of the CC’s appointments process. I think we need you tell us how you are so certain that ‘vastly more experienced’ people (twenty years) were overlooked when she was appointed? You are an insider, whistleblowing here? You have first… Read more »