The annual payments extracted from parishes

sir – Rev Philip Harratt (Letters, October 28) misses the point about current Church of England finances when he asks whether a parish would be “willing to pay a priest’s stipend directly”.

Most parishes, like my own and those of several of your recent correspondents, make an annual “gift” to the diocese in the region of £65,000. In return we receive half a vicar and a house.

Anyone in management will tell you that the cost of these, including pension, insurance and overheads, is unlikely to add up to more than £45,000. Therefore most parishes are giving away £20,000 a year to an unaccountable and bloated administration.

It is not as if this extra money is used to support poorer parishes. As another correspondent, Frances Rand (Letters, October 28), points out, the diocese shuts these parishes down.

The other part of the background to this disgraceful state of affairs concerns the role of the Church Commissioners. Despite poor investment acumen, the Church of England remains one of the richest landowners in the country. But no money seems forthcoming to assist the parishes in plugging the administrative black hole that is the dioceses.

We have, in the Church of England, an opaque, top-heavy hierarchy, which is more concerned about preserving itself at the expense of the parishes, which it still does not realise are its life-blood. A bit like the NHS and the BBC.

Professor R G Faulkner Loughborough, Leicestershire