The diocese has reshaped its Support Services team as it seeks to offer more focused support to parishes in their mission activity and to achieve savings due to the financial pressures it faces from reductions in Parish Share income, exacerbated by the impact of the Covid pandemic. The structure, which comes into effect on 1 December 2021, has been designed to offer increased support for parishes and deaneries and more localised support. As part of the reshaping some redundancies have had to be made.
Charlie Peer, Head of the new Mission Support & Ministry Development team, says, “While the need to save costs prompted the reshaping exercise, it was important to look across the team as a whole and ensure we are set up to best support our parishes, deaneries and schools as we all deal with the challenges ahead.”
“Mission takes place in the parishes and deaneries and out there in the communities so we have reorganised to greatly increase the capacity for deanery and parish support. We are also seeking to deliver our support as at a local a level as possible, which is why we have increased the number of archdeaconry-based roles.”
The structure changes also support the desire to bring children and young people into the heart of the diocese, which ties into the vision of the Church of England to become younger and more diverse.
Ed Gregory, Head of Education says, “The Education team is focused on supporting the adults who work with young people and children in our schools and parishes, as well as with children and young people. The key change within the Education team is that we have revisited the role of the Go Team and they now will be supporting our work for both the Church of England’s Growing in Faith and Everyday Faith initiatives. This will help us support the life-long learning journey in both education and also discipleship and faith.”
Please pray for all staff who are impacted by the changes, in particular those who are being made redundant.