DBF, DBE and committees

Each diocese has a Diocesan Board of Finance (‘DBF’), established under the Diocesan Boards of Finance Measure 1925 .

These are established as companies limited by guarantee, and are charitable, so that they are regulated both by Companies House and by the Charity Commission.

The Boards are corporate bodies which hold the assets of the respective dioceses, including historic endowments and glebe property and clergy housing. Though parsonage properties are held in the name of individual incumbents, the value of parsonage properties appears on the balance sheet of each DBF. DBF’s are responsible for funding clergy stipends and on-costs, including pension contributions, and are also responsible for the provision of clergy housing.

Apart from income arising from historic endowments and glebe property, DBF’s are funded by contributions from individual parishes, often referred to as ‘Parish Share’ or ‘Common Fund’. These contributions are intended to cover the core cost of ministry.

The DBF also has various statutory functions:

• The repair and maintenance of clergy housing, including parsonage properties, managed through a Parsonages Board, governed by the Repair of Benefice Buildings Measure 1972.
• The  maintenance of a Diocesan Advisory Committee or ‘DAC’ to advise on matters relating to church buildings, under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure 2018.
• The management of glebe and parsonage property is governed by the Church Property Measure 2018.
• The payment of clergy stipends and other functions relating to clergy terms and conditions, regulated by the Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Measure 2009.
• The provision of a Diocesan Board of Education (‘DBE’), under the Diocesan Boards of Education Measure 2021. The 2021 Measure provides several optional means of providing a DBE. In London, the DBE is a separate corporate body, the London Diocesan Board for Schools. In Norwich and St Edmundsbury and Ipswich the DBE is the DBF, which discharges its functions through a separate DBE committee.

Most DBF’s also have other committees to deal with specific areas of work, such as an Audit and Risk Committee, a Finance Committee, Property Committee, Nominations Committee etc, according to the volume of work in each specific area.