Very charitable! Church boss gets bonus of £250k
THE Church of England handed a bonus of more than a quarter of a million pounds to one of its charity chiefs last year.
The record sum took the pay packet of investment director Tom Joy to more than £500,000.
It makes the 45-year-old – an executive at Church Commissioners for England, the charity that manages the CofE’s investments – one of the top-paid charity bosses in the country. The bonus came despite the Commissioners’ asset managers failing to hit targets, and the Church admitting that prospects for future returns are ‘muted’.
The payment flies in the face of Church advice to the City that bonuses should be curbed. City observers said the CofE risked appearing hypocritical by attacking others for a bonus culture it applies to its staff. Mr Joy’s pay was disclosed yesterday in the Commissioners’ annual report, which said holdings rose in value by 7.1 per cent last year, short of a 9.1 per cent target.
In 2013, the Most Rev Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, told HSBC its bonus payments were unnecessary.
As a member of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, he said: ‘It seems to me you are putting huge effort into a values-based organisation and yet … you seem to be saying the only way you can motivate them to any significant extent is with cash.’
The Commissioners’ assets stand at £8.3billion, of which £226million was handed over to run the Church.
Nine asset managers at the charity were paid bonuses totalling £ 986,232. Mr Joy received £251,000 of this – 24 per cent up on the previous year. His basic salary increased by £5,000 to £264,000, bringing his full pay packet to £515,000.
The figure is more than 20 times the benchmark stipend recommended for clergy in 2017 – £25,440.
CofE guidance for financial firms on bonuses was set down in 2013 by its Ethical Investment Advisory Group. It said
‘Inconsistent, if not hypocritical’
they ‘should normally be paid in shares held for the long term’. Mr Joy’s bonuses have been paid in cash.
His pay appears to go against CofE leaders’ calls to fight income inequality, which the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev John Sentamu, has called a ‘giant that must be slayed’.
Ruth Lea of the Arbuthnot Banking Group said: ‘Given their advice to others on ethical payment these bonuses may be seen as inconsistent if not hypocritical.’
A Church spokesman said: ‘The payment is largely comprised of long-term incentive payments … The increase is therefore to do with past performance not this year’s.
‘ This policy is consistent with our remuneration policy re other companies.’