jQuery Slider

You are here

Heavens above! Church of England staff receive £1million bonuses... after Welby slammed bankers' excessive pay

Heavens above! Church of England staff receive £1million bonuses... after Welby slammed bankers' excessive pay
Church of England paid out huge bonuses to its own fund managers last year
Comes after Archbishop of Canterbury criticised bonuses for bankers
Largest bonus went to investment boss Tom Joy who received £202,000

By STEVE DOUGHTY, SOCIAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
May 22, 2017

The Church of England paid more than £1million in bonuses to its own fund managers last year, newly released financial statements have revealed.

The payouts were given to 10 senior managers despite the Archbishop of Canterbury's professed disapproval of the way banks use bonus systems to reward their staff.

The payments brought charges of hypocrisy from City critics who say the CofE has opened a gap between what it tells other people to do and what it does itself.

The annual report of the CofE's financial wing, the Church Commissioners, showed that bonuses, which were first paid to managers in 2013, topped the £1 million level for the first time in 2016.

The Church of England handed more than £1million in bonuses to fund managers last year despite Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, pictured, criticising banks for their 'excessive pay' to employees

The biggest bonus went to investment chief Tom Joy, who was given a 'long term incentive payment' of £202,000 on top of his salary of £259,000, taking his full earnings for the year to £461,000.

Mr Joy's bonuses from 2013 to 2016 have now totalled £661,000.

Last year's bonuses came to £1,048,000 for all 10 managers who received them, in a year in which the Commissioners earned a market-beating 17.1 per cent on the CofE's historic investments.

The success took the value of the Church's holdings to almost £8 billion, and allowed the Commissioners to pump more than £230 million into the Church to pay its costs and clergy stipends.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, said: 'In a year which saw considerable political turbulence, the Church Commissioners continued to provide effective stewardship of investments matched by ethical and responsible investment.'

However the Archbishop's praise contrasted with his condemnation of the bonus culture in 2013, when he was a member of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, which was investigating City practices.

Then Archbishop Welby told HSBC executives that their bonus payments were unnecessary.

'I am increasingly baffled at the discussion we are having,' the Archbishop said. 'What is it essentially about bankers that means they need skin in the game? We don't give skin in the game to civil servants, to surgeons, to teachers.

'There's a whole range of people who don't have that. It seems to me that you are putting huge effort into a values-based organisation and yet at the end of the day, particularly for your most senior staff who are most important as regards setting values and culture, you seem to be saying the only way you can motivate them to any significant extent is with cash.'

Archbishop Welby and the number two in the CofE hierarchy, Archbishop of York the Most Reverend John Sentamu, repeated their warning about selfishness in the finance system earlier this month in their letter of advice to parishes on the general election.

'Our economic and financial systems at home and abroad should aim to be engines of innovation, not simply traders for their own account,' the Archbishops said.

Yesterday's report said that last year the Commissioners voted more than 100 times in shareholder meetings of companies in which it invests to reject pay structures recommended by their directors.

Advice from the Church to private companies says that if they operate long term incentive payment schemes, bonuses should reward work over five or seven-year timescales 'and should normally be paid in shares held for the long term in order to reward permanent value creation.'

Bonuses for Commissioners' staff are paid in cash.

A CofE spokesman said yesterday that the incentive payments made by the Commissioners cover work done over five-year periods.

However Mr Joy's first bonus was paid in 2013, less than five years after he joined the Commissioners in October 2009.

Anglican churchgoer Ruth Lea, economist for the Arbuthnot Banking Group, said: 'The Church needs to rethink the consistency of its messages.

'There seems to be some inconsistency here which some people might see as hypocrisy.

'At the very least there should be consistency between what they say and what they do. People expect the Church to say what it means and mean what it says.'

The payment of bonuses follows earlier differences between the Commissioners and the Archbishop of Canterbury over payday lending.

The Commissioners maintained an investment in payday lender Wonga long after the Archbishop had criticised it.

At the other end of the income scale, in 2015 the Church was forced to admit paying workers in its care homes less than the living wage which its Archbishops had been urging other employers to pay.

END

Subscribe
Get a bi-weekly summary of Anglican news from around the world.
comments powered by Disqus
Trinity School for Ministry
Go To Top