Almost all employers have to invest heavily in newly recruited members of staff; it’s not just the church that faces those costs. Sensible employers work to minimise staff turnover but recognise that staff do move on for professional and personal reasons and factor that in to their budgeting. Why should the CofE think itself special in this regard? The House of Bishops recognises that they have a recruitment and retention crisis; I seem to remember that they actually used the word ‘crisis’. They have wisely increased stipends and reversed the stringent cuts to pension benefits they introduced fifteen years ago.… Read more »
From what I’ve seen locally, the CofE could do with a better strategy for supporting trained clergy who have dropped out of parish ministry. I’m aware of 3 local clergy who have all completed a curacy but are now doing something other than CofE ministry, and I don’t see anything that looks like systematic follow up or trying to find them a pathway into a parish role. When the CofE releases its statistics on ministry, the focus is always on how many clergy we need to recruit/are recruiting, but never on closing the back door. How many clergy would still… Read more »
Almost all employers have to invest heavily in newly recruited members of staff; it’s not just the church that faces those costs. Sensible employers work to minimise staff turnover but recognise that staff do move on for professional and personal reasons and factor that in to their budgeting. Why should the CofE think itself special in this regard? The House of Bishops recognises that they have a recruitment and retention crisis; I seem to remember that they actually used the word ‘crisis’. They have wisely increased stipends and reversed the stringent cuts to pension benefits they introduced fifteen years ago.… Read more »
From what I’ve seen locally, the CofE could do with a better strategy for supporting trained clergy who have dropped out of parish ministry. I’m aware of 3 local clergy who have all completed a curacy but are now doing something other than CofE ministry, and I don’t see anything that looks like systematic follow up or trying to find them a pathway into a parish role. When the CofE releases its statistics on ministry, the focus is always on how many clergy we need to recruit/are recruiting, but never on closing the back door. How many clergy would still… Read more »