Lambeth’s £288,000 deficit due to incompetence: CEN 3.26.09 March 26, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Lambeth 2008.trackback
Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper.
Poor planning, inexperienced management, and weak financial controls contributed to a £288,000 deficit for the 2008 Lambeth Conference, a report released last week by the Archbishops’ Council and the Church Commissioners has concluded.
The management team, conference structure and business practices were not up to the job, the report found, stating that the “arrangements in place for the 2008 conference were less robust than they needed to be.”
The conference’s opaque management structure had left no one in charge, with the result that there had been a “disconnect between design on the one hand, and capacity and execution on the other.” The lack of clear lines of authority had led to cost overruns, with the financial team “not always aware” of the commitments made by conference management staff.
Two examples cited by the report were the “failure to recognise a commitment for expenditure of £411,000 on the Big Top” the blue tent that served as the principle venue for conference meetings, and IT support. The conference finance director “did not know” about the Big Top bill, while the conference “organiser did not know it was not in the budget.” Rather than charging a flat fee for internet usage by conference goers, the University of Kent changed the conference for individual log-ons, leading to a bill of £80,576—over £65,000 over budget.
The report stated that “at no stage in its review did the group find any evidence of financial malpractice or dishonesty.” However it questioned the competence of the conference team, asking “whether the match between available skills and needs was as good as might be wished. Specifically the conference required people with: a good understanding of the wider church and the expectations and ways of working of key stakeholders; strong commercial and financial skills; and ideally experience of delivering a high-profile complex conference for participants with different languages and from different cultures.”
Income was lower than expected due to the boycott by over 200 bishops, but was also hampered by poor planning. There was also no relation between the fees charged conference participants and actual costs, the report stated, with the conference determined on a political rather than fiscal basis.
Fundraising also began late and had been hampered by the political uncertainties within the Communion, the report noted, while the 2004 decision by the ACC to discontinue setting aside funds for the conference left it chronically short of funds.
Charted as a condition for the extension of an emergency loan in July from the Archbishops’ Council and the Church Commissioners to keep the Lambeth Conference solvent, the review committee led by John Ormerod, a former partner of accountancy firm Deloitte, with the Rt. Rev. Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester, Dr Christina Baxter, principal of St John’s College, Nottingham, and Timothy Walker, Third Church Estates Commissioner, submitted its report on Feb 16.
It offered 16 recommendations to the Anglican Consultative Council and other “stakeholders” in the conference that stressed the need for sound business practices and clear lines of authority, and that planning for Lambeth 2018 begin so as to avoid the problems of the last conference.
Comments»
No comments yet — be the first.