Living the dream?

House for Duty in the Church of England

Mostly clergy are motivated to seek a house for duty post by reason of being unable to afford to buy or rent after a lifetime of living in Vicarages.

So for me my first stint as a house for duty clergyman was motivated because I was working in the south of England but could not afford to live there because, having lived in Vicarages all my working life, I had no equity. 

So a postcode a thirty minute drive from Junction 13 of the M1 had significant benefits.

My second, current, stint was motivated for more complex reasons. I owned my own house outright so accommodation was not an issue.

However I had spent some 12 or so years caring for my wife who had MS and Breast Cancer. After her death I met and married again and my new partner, an Occupational Therapist, was of the view that an Occupation was the best therapy.

But also having retired at the fairly early of 62, from a job as a Director of a Charity and House for Duty Priest, I felt that I still ‘had a job in me’.

Having taken up my new post I feel valued and am deeply conscious of the privileges that ordained ministry offers to clergy particularly in the parish setting.

I am also privileged in the sense that, quite remarkably, this is a single parish appointment and on Sunday I can walk to the church, which is directly across the road from my house.

The house we live in is also remarkable in that it doesn’t have a sign saying ‘The Old Vicarage' but having been built in 1886 it is a splendid house, comfortable, spacious and excellent for parties.

I have also benefitted from age discrimination legislation and have a Bishop’s Licence for five years, despite having been appointed in 2018 at the age of 73, after a medical which declared me to be fit and in good health.

So far then the news is very good indeed.

But what my new wife and I are finding is that there are constraints and challenges as well as benefits to the role of House for Duty Priest and ‘Vicar’s” wife.

 On the positive side the Archdeacon and the Diocesan Property Manager have been extremely supportive. Conversations regarding works to make the house more comfortable have always been amicable and there is a good relationship between ourselves, the contractors, and Diocesan Staff.

However we moved into the House in late November 2018 and to date we have put 4500 litres of Oil into the tank and used a substantial amount of Coal and Wood. The grounds are so huge that we also have to have some help in the extensive gardens.

According to the Church of England’s guidance on House for Duty appointments presumably agreed with HMRC the house is a 'benefit in kind' which requires a time commitment of two days plus Sunday to ensure that it is not viewed as taxable income.

Which is fine I guess. 

Except that, despite the Archdeacon’s view that I must take two days a week off, back to back, I find that most days I have some parish business to take care of: a pastoral crisis, a funeral, wedding preparation. Whilst all those activities, in what is a busy parish with a strong social and community life, are both work and pleasure,  pleasure because you might do them anyway, concerts, parish lunches, afternoon teas, festivals and film nights but work because you are the ‘Vicar” and “if I could just ask ……?”

As a Stipendiary Priest I would receive tax relief on the costs of heating and lighting my Vicarage and for garden upkeep. As a House for Duty Priest I do not receive these benefits.

My wife, who has never been a ‘Vicar’s’ wife before is beginning to recognise the rise in Housekeeping costs as she offers entertainment, buns, cakes and biscuits to contractors, parish meetings and to callers by.

According to the Diocese a House for Duty Priest costs £20, 000 a year, (the parish share for this parish is £38, 000 which was paid in full during the two years of the vacancy).

I cannot question the maths in this calculation because I do not know how the calculation is made. However from where I sit, stand, preach or celebrate Mass, it does rather feel as though I am subsiding the Church of England out of my Pension and the rental income from my property.

If I was relying on my pension alone (which was reduced because I retired early to be a carer) I could not afford to occupy this house (Energy Efficiency Rating G).

This feeling is strengthened by the fact that the Diocesan and Church of England view of fees has changed since I was last in a stipendiary post and I do not benefit from any fee income at all.
So there is real dilemma in all of this.

This parish was originally founded from a nearby Abbey and, apparently the support for the priest was set at £28 annually. (I recently received a book token in that amount from the Trustees of the Foundation).

The House and grounds are expensive to maintain whilst being a joy to live in.

There are costs borne by the Diocese, for e.g. Continuing Ministerial Education, the Hierarchy, Diocesan Synod and associated structures together with any subvention to the National Church, but from the parish that all seems a long way away and not especially necessary.

Whether all that amounts to £20,000 I do not know but would love to have it explained to me.

Recently I was advised that the sum is arrived at via a valuation of the rental cost of the house, this may be so but the rental cost of the house is far, far lower than £20,000.

Indeed a modern house will offer greater benefits and be less costly than a large inefficient 19th Century house.

Also the costs of fulfilling the role will also vary, in a previous (house for duty) parish I did not claim expenses and gave generously to the parish because my job was in fact very well paid. Now I have a pension that is 13½% less than it should be because I retired early to care for a disabled partner. I pay tax on my Church and State pensions.  My Civil Service pension and a small annuity are paid net of tax.

Another House for Duty Priest in the Deanery calculates that she works a 50 hour week on average and that it costs her £70 a week to live in the house. Given that I am a less efficient book keeper that seems about right to me.

Certainly I rarely work less than five days a week and sometimes more.

So, whilst as it says in the Communion Prayer:

‘It is a duty and a Joy’.

It is also I think yet to be thought through more clearly. 

As the Church of England plans for a future where belief is the exception rather than the rule, where there will be fewer clergy, where lay involvement will have of necessity to be greater. If there is to be a greater reliance on retired clergy to continue to work then the terms and conditions of that work need, I believe, to be thought out more carefully and fairly than at present they are.

The deal that the national church has done with HMRC values a house specifically as worth two days plus a Sunday’s worth of work. I’m sure that it is easier generally to make the arrangements general and generic but each parish and each particular situation is in fact different. 







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