The Mutual Support Fund

The Mutual Support Fund (MSF) is the combined fund of Diocesan investment income, savings from vacancies, rental of vacant properties, fee income and the 20% mutual support contribution from every parish in the share scheme.   

How the mutual support fund is distributed to parishes is based on two crtieria: deprivation and geographic area of the parish (reflecting some of the challenges of rural ministry).

The Mutual Support Fund is split into two sub funds proportioned at a ratio of 80:20 between Deprivation (IMD) and Geography (GEO). The two sub funds are then allocated to each parish based on how they rank in these criteria compared to all the other parishes in the diocese. 

Deprivation Calculation 

The Office of National Statistics provides regularly updated Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) based on Council wards. The National Church of England Research and Statistics team put this through a remapping process to overlay the parish boundaries to produce the same dataset by parish, including population. This can be found here.

Filtering this data to the Chelmsford diocese, the average IMD Score and the Standard Deviation (Std Dev) of the IMD Score is calculated.  Standard Deviation is a statistical measure of difference from an average. The 5 least deprived parishes receive no grant. The average IMD Score of the 5 least deprived parishes is calculated to give a baseline. Then for each parish, the difference between the Parish IMD Score and the baseline is calculated in terms of the number of Std Devs of distance, using the following formula: 

(Baseline IMD Score - Parish IMD Score) / Width of one Std Dev 

This is converted to a fraction by dividing each parish Std Dev distance by the sum of all the parish Std Dev distance. 

In 2023, this gives the most deprived parish a fraction of 0.00869 and the 6th least deprived (the least deprived to receive a grant) of 0.00012.  The parishes are sorted and ranked where 1 is the most deprived and 466 is the least deprived. The Fraction and the Rank for each parish are shown on the assessment. 

This fraction is multiplied by the value of the Deprivation part of the MSF to give a grant figure for each parish. 

The distribution of the IMD grant, Rank vs grant value, looks like this:

Geography Calculation 

National Church Research and Statistics team provide a calculation of each parishes area in square miles, using a mapping tool which holds all of the parish boundary vectors. This data is included in the IMD dataset found here.

From 2024, this calculation will be made based on the area of the Benefice, rather than the parish, to reflect the geographic impact of minisering to a multi parish benefice.

To calculate the distance across each Benefice, which an Incumbent may have to travel to carry out their duties, we take the Square root of the area to give a distance or diameter of sum of the constituent parishes. 

This ranges from 0.36 miles for the smallest Benefice to 21.77 miles for the largest. 

The Benefices are sorted and ranked where 1 is the largest distance and 466 is the least distance. 

The list is then referenced to zero by taking away the smallest distance from all of the Benefice distances. 

This number is then divided by the sum of all the Benefices distances to convert it to a fraction. 

This gives the smallest diameter Benefice a fraction of 0.0004976 and the largest diameter parish a fraction of 0.0297220

The Fraction and the Rank for each Benefice are shown on the assessment, the same for each Parish in the Benefice. 

This fraction is multiplied by the value of the Geography part of the MSF and divided equally between the Parishes in the Benefice, to give a grant figure for each parish. 

The distribution of the GEO grant, Rank vs grant value, looks like this: 

Stipendiary Percentage (STP %) 

The mutual support in the new scheme is applied according to the level of ministry being provided by the Diocese, rather than as a disconnected grant based on the difference between the cost of ministry and the amount of share paid the previous year plus the synod agreed inflationary rise, as in the old scheme. 

The percentage of the eligible mutual support (calculated in the above sections) received is based on a per stipendiary basis, so a parish with one stipendiary minister will receive 100% of the eligible grant. 

For 2024, it has been agreed by Synod that the Future Ministry contribution will be included in this calcualtion such that HfD and SSM In Charge appointments attract a fairer amount of Mutual Support in the calculation.

Because many parishes share their ministry with another parish or benefice (in an SPU) there are many permutations of ministry, which includes the housing and the Future Ministry contribution that are factored into the formula to produce the stipendiary %. This is a similar idea to the full time equivalent for a part time employee.

Stipendiary, House for Duty and SSM in charge all have a cost, which is used to calculate the percentage in the example shown below: 

For 2023, cost of one full stipendiary = 1 STP + House = 40,850 + 12,617 = 100.00%

For 2024, cost of one full stipendiary = 1 STP + House  + Future Ministry = 41,814 + 14,620 + 14,987 = 100.00%

For 2023, cost of a post paid half a stipend with housing provided  = 0.5 STP + House = 20,425 + 12,617 = 61.80% 

For 2024, cost of a post paid half a stipend with housing provided  = 0.5 STP + House + Future Ministry = 20,907 + 14,620+ 14,987 = 70.73% 

Where 1 stipendiary clergy covers, for example, 3 parishes, each will receive 33.3% of the eligible Mutual Support Funds, the split of the establishment for the calculation will always be in equal parts, though this may not reflect the pattern of ministry in the parishes concerned. This is because each parish has separately calculated Geography and Deprivation mutual support which can vary significantly between the parishes that share the stipendiary minister. 

Other combinations are summarised in the following table: 

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