Anglican clergy are to be asked to work until the age of 68 to rescue the Church of England from a multimillion-pound pensions shortfall after the credit crunch left a “huge great hole” in a scheme created in 1998.
How’s this for a revolutionary thought, perhaps ministers of the Gospel shouldn’t retire and then there wouldn’t be a bloomin’ pension crisis in the Church of England.
You think I’m joking?. Where in the Bible does it talk of folk retiring? Does Jesus give the command to be a minister of the Gospel until a certain age and then put your feet up? Is there any evidence of this as a precedent in the New Testament? No! In fact quite the opposite.
The increased longevity of the clergy, combined with greater regulation and the credit crunch, has left the Church’s new pension scheme with liabilities of £813 million, nearly almost double the £461 million market value of its assets.
The scheme, created in 1998 and part-funded by churchgoers who are being asked to put more in the collection pot than ever before to pay clergy pensions, has been especially hard hit because all its investments were placed in the stock market at the end of the 1990s. But in putting all its cash into equity, the Church was following established financial norms. Before that, the Church Commissioners, who manage the assets of the Church, had been criticised for losing millions of pounds in speculative property investments.
Clergy are in one of the few jobs that still enjoy fixed-benefit schemes. However, they are especially vulnerable to a pensions crisis because they live in tied accommodation owned by the Church and their meagre stipend of £20,000 leaves little surplus to invest in a retirement home or private pension scheme. Their pension works out at about two thirds of their stipend plus a lump sum, and they are entitled to work until the age of 70, although at present they can retire at 65 if they wish.
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