The Church of England is facing a financial crisis driven by falling attendance, rising administrative costs and what two academics describe as expensive and unsustainable initiatives, including its net zero programme and a £100 million reparative justice fund.
Canon Robin Gill and Professor John Craven have warned that the Church is “heading for financial disaster” unless it takes what they call “ruthless” action to reduce bureaucracy and put parishes at the centre of its spending decisions.
Their report, Wasted Money in a Diminishing Church, says the number of dioceses operating at a deficit has risen to 37 out of 42, compared with 18 in 2019.
It also claims that diocesan staffing has increased by 80 per cent since 2005, rising from 1,300 employees to 2,300. New positions include net zero officers, racial justice leads and safeguarding specialists, with some dioceses now employing as many staff as ministers.
Church of England urged to cut bishops and administrators
The Church has committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2030 and has set aside £190 million for environmentally friendly renovations. However, it has acknowledged that the target will not be met by the deadline.
It has also established Project Spire, a £100 million fund intended to address the Church’s historical links to the transatlantic slave trade. The initiative has been criticised by Conservative MPs and peers, who have described it as a “legally dubious vanity project” and questioned the evidence underpinning it.
Canon Gill and Professor Craven called for the number of diocesan bishops to be reduced by a third, bringing the total number of dioceses to about 30. They also urged substantial cuts to managerial and administrative posts and a reduction of at least three-quarters in nationally funded strategic investments.
The report recommends that deaneries become the main budget holders, with funding from historic resources distributed according to relative deprivation. It also calls for suffragan bishops and archdeacons to take on part-time parish ministry, greater financial scrutiny of projects and measures to make parish priesthood more attractive.
The authors said the Church was caught in a “serious cycle of decline”, with fewer worshippers, donations and ordinations leaving clergy spread more thinly across urban and rural areas.
“More and more of its funds are being spent on administration in every diocese while churchgoing continues to decline, and less and less is spent on supporting parish clergy,” they said.
They added that services were becoming less frequent and congregations smaller, making it harder to raise money through collections from parishioners who questioned what they were receiving in return.
Church attendance reached an estimated 1.02 million regular worshippers in 2025, a 1.4 per cent increase on the previous year, according to figures released by the Church. Average Sunday attendance rose to 590,000, while weekly attendance reached 707,000.
Those figures remained below 2019 levels, when the worshipping community stood at 1.11 million. Average Sunday attendance was then 690,000 and weekly attendance was 854,000.
A Church of England spokesman described the report as a “welcome contribution” to discussions about the pressures facing the institution. He said dioceses had made progress in sharing roles and services, while larger structural changes remained a major undertaking.
Responding to criticism of staffing levels, the spokesman said the growth in safeguarding posts reflected the need for expertise in child protection and policing, adding that the roles were vital to protecting vulnerable people in church communities.
