Examination of Witnesses (Questions 171
- 179)
TUESDAY 28 MARCH 2006
THE REV'D
CANON MICHAEL
AINSWORTH, MS
PAULA GRIFFITHS,
THE VERY
REV'D
DAVID BRINDLEY,
THE VERY
REV'D
COLIN SLEE
AND MR
TREVOR COOPER
Chairman: Good morning. I welcome to
the first part of this morning's session representatives of the
Church Heritage Forum, the Association of English Cathedrals,
and Mr Cooper, the Chairman of Council of the Ecclesiological
Society. We have already focused on how we try and preserve redundant
churches and chapels. Your focus is on how we try and keep the
buildings of the Church of England and other places of worship
going as places of worship and, given the proportion of the listed
buildings in the country that are represented by the ecclesiastical
state, that is clearly of huge importance. I will invite my colleague,
Philip Davies, to begin.
Q171 Philip Davies: In September
2003, the Bishop of London spoke about state funding and described
the Church of England as being, in financial terms, the most disestablished
church in Western Europe. Do you all agree with that and, if so,
would you like it to stay like that?
Mr Brindley: The answer is yes,
we agree. If you are saying it particularly in relation to France,
where all church buildings older than 1904 are fully financed
by the state, and in respect of Germany where there are church
taxes which finance the buildings, and in Scandinavia of course,
in relation to those we get very little state support. No, we
do not want it to stay like that because we think it is important
that both we, the Church, and the state and local authorities
see the conservation of these buildings and the use of these buildings
as a partnership.
Canon Ainsworth: What we are not
arguing for is that the state should simply take over as in some
of those regimes. We are arguing for a recognition of partnership
of the state working with the Church, locally and nationally,
as partners so that the huge pool of volunteers who maintain churches
and cathedrals across the country, that that precious asset is
cherished and developed rather than lost.
Ms Griffiths: It is important
to say that these other European countries which give funding
are very much doing so in recognition also of social and community
work which goes on in and through church buildings of which there
is a tremendous amount in this country and a tremendous amount
of volunteer effort.
Q172 Philip Davies: Do you think
that the Government in the form of DCMS fully understands the
cultural role played by churches and cathedrals in the community?
Mr Slee: No. There is plenty of
evidence of that. There have been a number of publications by
DCMS and by other organisations like the Mayor of London's planning
scheme which did not even mention the cathedrals in London within
its pages. The DCMS has, on a number of occasions, and in lots
of different ways, failed to recognise the existence of not only
the cathedrals, but of churches as not simply places of worship
but as places of architectural heritage, as places of community
interaction and places of major interfaith contact.
Ms Griffiths: There is a tendency
for public bodies to look at the church with blinkers on and to
think "this is a faith group and so it is exclusive".
The whole point of the Church of England particularly is that
it is there and supports work and supports the community whether
the people who come to the activities are of any faith or none
at all.
Mr Brindley: It is interesting
in specific terms the number of cultural strategies that have
been published in the last four or five years by both local authorities
and the regions have not mentioned church input to local culture.
Portsmouth Cathedral where I work had 62 concerts last year. It
was a major provider of music in that city. Those who have been
responsible for drawing up cultural strategies have a very blinkered
view and imagine that all that happens in churches is services
whereas there is a great cultural richness in our cathedrals and
churches which generally is not recognised.
Canon Ainsworth: That was the
same in Salford where I work with cultural strategy. It is true
locally in each area; it is also true nationally as we saw at
the time of the Licensing Bill. There was a complete under-recognition
of the community value of church buildings.
Mr Cooper: The fundamental reason
is that the churches sometimes look rather like a public utility—free
at point of service, paid for by mysterious means, just there—and
to give one example if you look on the Defra website at the very
important and useful work being done on better parish governance,
which is a prime opportunity to ask the question how can this
key central building be better incorporated into the life of the
parish, there is nothing there at all, or there was not when I
last looked.
Q173 Philip Davies: Could I ask Michael
Ainsworth specifically a question? You ask for a level playing
field in terms of access to funding. In what way do you think
that it is skewed?
Ms Griffiths: It is this point
of public funding bodies not recognising the contribution which
churches can make and not being willing to give them grants. There
is lots of anecdotal evidence of people going to their local authority
or their regional authority for something they want to do to serve
a community and being told "No, you are exclusive, what is
this going to do for the wider community?", and really having
to fight very hard to prove and show that there is benefit there.
In rural areas particularly the church may well be the only public
building still going and has tremendous potential and is very
often fulfilling it, but having to work jolly hard to persuade
people that there are the benefits there.
Canon Ainsworth: In urban areas
too where many churches provide social glue in terms of regeneration
there is no real recognition of that and churches have to fight
to earn a place at the table in terms of funding and in terms
of strategy also.
Ms Griffiths: It also happens
at national level. The Big Lottery, for example, have talked about
a new scheme for community halls and it has taken a lot of discussion
to say that the focus provided by community halls can also be
provided by churches and places of worship. They are getting the
message but they started out with the presumption that this was
not something they would wish to do.
Canon Ainsworth: There may also
be a problem in some areas where `faith communities' are understood
to mean non-Christian faith groups and churches have to make that
point as well.
Q174 Chairman: You all appear to
feel that the Government is not providing sufficient financial
support for churches, cathedrals, places of worship but, on the
other hand, understandably you are reluctant to see the Government
taking over any ownership or responsibility. Are those two things
compatible in the long term, or are you going to have to look
at deeper questions about ownership of the assets?
Ms Griffiths: The great strength
of the parish system is that it enables local people to be involved
in their buildings, to love them and to care for them. David Brindley
started off by saying that we would not wish to go down the French
system in terms of ownership, much as we would like the money.
If you go into a church in France, yes, it is maintained by the
state, but what comes over only too often is a sense of depression,
of not being looked after, of not being cared for and of really
being a dead building. The great beauty of churches in this country
is that they do have a potential to be loved, looked after and
maintained. When that works and is enabled it is much stronger
than any bureaucratic central organisation doing the management.
Canon Ainsworth: I can speak with
quite a lot of experience of Finland, which is possibly the wealthiest
church in Europe where buildings are immaculately maintained,
but there is that sense of deadness because people will say "I
am not going to do that. Somebody is paid to do it." This
precious resource of the army of volunteers who care for their
buildings and maintain them in their local community is something
that we want to hold on to and want to be recognised by government.
Mr Slee: Cathedrals raise £11
million for every £1 million from English Heritage. The raising
of that money depends upon the volunteers, but there is a point
at which that will no longer be achievable at the levels that
it has been over the past decade or so. If we can look at something
like 50/50 match funding then we are into an entirely different
realm of possibilities, maintaining community engagement and involvement,
but at the same time having the security of knowing that the whole
thing is upon our shoulders. Cathedrals of course are financially
independent of their diocese so they must stand on their own feet.
There is a very heavy burden in terms of the major buildings.
Mr Brindley: It is that realistic
middle ground that we are looking for, certainly not a French
system, and certainly not a system in which both the local community
and the national community has no input into the buildings. It
is a fascinating question about who owns the local parish church—no-one
quite knows really—so it is that middle ground partnership
that we think is the most fruitful way forward.
Mr Cooper: I would argue that
there is a structural deficit here. It is not particularly easy
for those who do not go to church to support it and we do need
to look at new ways of involving them. We know that Friends groups
have been mushrooming; a peculiarly English skill of inventing
a method of supporting religion without being religious. No-one
knows how many Friends groups there are; 300-odd are registered
separately with the Charity Commission but I know there are many
more out there. There are real questions about how well Friends
groups operate and the fundamental relationship and rights of
various parties. We know that parish councils are allowed to give
funding to church buildings but very rarely seem to. In a few
cases I have been investigating there are trusts which have been
set up by local communities to support their church buildings.
There is a lot going on though which suggests that we need to
explore and help these various methods of involving the 96% of
those who are not members of Anglican churches to help those who
are members to support these buildings which are, after all, available
as public spaces for everyone.
Canon Ainsworth: We are very conscious
too of the need to address the perception that the Church is wealthy,
both locally in the diocese and nationally. We know that you do
not think that but there are many people out there who do.
Q175 Chairman: This volunteer army
is getting smaller and you have a lot of churches to maintain.
Are you confident that you can in the long term sustain the church
estate as it presently stands with the work of volunteers?
Mr Slee: The volunteer army probably
has some direct correlation with the way the church is itself
working within its own community. My volunteer army in Southwark
has been growing exponentially but that is because the church
has engaged in the local community and the local community is
responding. It is always so difficult to start throwing figures
around. 48% of London went to church at Christmas. That is a phenomenal
number. 43% of the country went to church at Christmas. When people
start saying that ninety-something per cent are not, as the National
Census showed, 73% say they are Christians.
Ms Griffiths: Interestingly we
have done some other research which asks people whether they have
been into a church building and, if so, what for. Two successive
surveys have shown that 86% of people had been into a church over
the past 12 months, often for several different reasons, not necessarily
for worship but quite often for baptisms/weddings, but very often
because they just wanted a quiet place to be. There is a tremendous
potential. When the church is under threat that is very often
the time when people come out of the woodwork. They may not want
to go every Sunday but they all want it there.
Canon Ainsworth: In terms of the
volunteer army to do all the maintenance that you were asking
about, the real danger is—I speak from a context of the
North West, the urban situation which I know some of you share—if
a congregation and the people in a community are so ground down
with the maintenance of a difficult building there is no time
for them to engage in the community outreach and the work of the
church which will of course sustain its life for the future. We
argue very strongly that the way to maintain churches is to use
them.
Mr Slee: The reverse side of that
is particularly amongst cathedrals a number maintain professional
workforces and are very important to the cultural heritage of
this country in that they are maintaining skilled craftsmen who
can be used elsewhere, and indeed are used elsewhere, because
the conservation of these very delicate buildings requires very
high-grade craftsmanship. Volunteers are there to look after visitors,
to service the ordinary daily needs of the building. The money
that we use in terms of the conservation of the buildings is spent
on very sophisticated and skilled work.
Q176 Alan Keen: Following on from
the subject we have been talking about, I represent a constituency
where the Punjabi community first settled in West London—we
have got the biggest Guduwara outside India and there is a large
mosque in the middle of Hounslow—there are other groups
amongst those religions who are not part of the mainstream Muslim
or Sikh communities who are desperate to find a building to worship
in. I have asked this question before and not really got an answer.
Is there a real problem of using churches for other religions
within the community or have there been talks? The Committee is
meeting now looking at the preservation of buildings rather than
preservation of the Church of England or other religions. Is there
any way that that could make a contribution or is there a brick
wall which stops that?
Canon Ainsworth: There are some
issues about using Christian churches of all denominations for
worship by other faiths but there is very extensive community
use by other faith groups in many areas. That is something to
be encouraged. If there is very clear evidence that other faith
groups are actively looking to use church buildings for worship,
and on the whole my experience is that they would prefer to have
their own buildings, then that is something that will always be
carefully and sympathetically considered but at the end of the
day there must be an issue about other faith worship in a Christian
church.
Mr Brindley: There are a lot of
examples of good cooperation and local partnership. For instance,
in the Portsmouth area when the last Gulf War was on members of
the Christian and Islamic community met every day at lunchtime
for prayers and there were about 120 people there every day with
40 or 50 people from the Muslim community there, so that sort
of cooperation happens.
Ms Griffiths: That is certainly
being replicated up in Yorkshire as well. Another point to make
is that, although we are all from a Church of England perspective,
the messages we are giving are, we believe, just as appropriate
to other denominations and other faiths. We would wish their community
support and involvement to be recognised too.
Mr Slee: I know that Guduwara
quite well. I would be quite surprised if they wanted to use an
active Christian church.
Q177 Alan Keen: How do you mean "active
Christian"?
Mr Slee: We have a number of interfaith
events every year, most notably the World Aids Day service which
is completely interfaith and everyone is very happy to cooperate
in that. Interestingly they always want to come to Southwark Cathedral.
There has never been any suggestion that they want to use another
building. The Jewish participants in that event have a really
hard time in their own community because the very Orthodox Jews
regard them as having broken unbreakable rules simply by becoming
engaged in it. If one was exploring that it would be very important
to explore whether that community itself would be happy. There
are lots of examples of churches that are no longer in use being
used by other faith communities.
Q178 Alan Keen: That is what I meant.
Mr Brindley: There are lots of
those.
Q179 Alan Keen: On the technical
side of it what proportion of churches are really getting to the
point where the fabric is going to disappear and be irreparable
after that?
Mr Brindley: We have specific
figures for the amount of major repairs needed over the next five
years because every church by statute is inspected on a quinquennial
basis. We know that something like £300 million is needed
over the next five years for repairs to churches and about £95
million needed for repairs to cathedrals over the next five years.
Ms Griffiths: That figure is £372
million and was given by parishes themselves. As we are looking
at those in more detail we are realising that that is probably
a considerable underestimate because it was not a full return
and some of them were really not quite sure. The figure is probably
significantly higher. On the one hand, churches are probably in
a far better state than they have been for a very long time. On
the other hand, there is a tremendous amount of work building
up and always will be. It is a bit like the Forth Bridge—you
are never going to be able to say that the repair problem has
been cracked for all time because historic buildings are, by definition,
sensitive, need careful looking after, need professional looking
after and materials will weather. We are now coming up to a problem
with Victorian and even some twentieth century churches which
were built in perhaps the 1930s or the 1950s and are now showing
problems of concrete rot or flimsy construction and so on. There
is going to be a continuing need for substantive repair to keep
these buildings going.
Mr Brindley: Those figures which
Ms Griffiths has just quoted do not include routine maintenance;
they are major repair figures and you could double that if you
are looking at routine maintenance which is spent on the churches
and on the cathedrals every year.
Mr Cooper: I can bore for England
on this topic apparently. I think the question was how many are
in danger of cracking up right now, and the answer to that is
very few. If you look at the profile you will find that a large
number of churches have a relatively small expenditure needed
right now and there are a small number of churches who have a
huge and frightening expenditure needed right now which is quite
difficult for a voluntary group planning ahead who does not know
over the next 20 or 30 years whether it is going to be lucky and
can therefore spend money on a youth worker or the toilets or
whatever, or unlucky and have a huge expenditure coming up. We
do know that the average rate of accumulation of repairs per year
per church is around about £7,000 per year. We know a little
more about the profile and, if you wish, I can write in about
this. The difficulty is that these are voluntary groups, and they
are quite small, the average congregation size is 60 or 70. There
are some very large congregations and some very small congregations.
The difficulty is that some of these are facing huge bills and
have never done that before and probably the minister in charge
has never done it before and suddenly this huge bill comes along
and they have to face up to it. The average condition is not bad
and as far as we can see the churches are managing just about
to keep on top of bills as they come in.
| 
