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2022-12-31-accounts

The PCC of Bilton Parish - Charity 1137095 Annual Report of Church Activities 2022

Aims and purposes

St Mark's Parochial Church Council (the PCC) has the responsibility of co-operating with the incumbent, the Reverend Timothy Cockell, in promoting in the ecclesiastical parish, the whole mission of the Church, pastoral, evangelistic, social and ecumenical. The PCC is also specifically responsible for the maintenance of St Mark's Church Centre.

Objectives and Activities

The PCC is committed to enabling as many people as possible to worship at our church and become part of our parish community at St Mark's. The PCC maintains an overview of worship throughout the parish and, through the Worship Group, makes suggestions on how services can involve the many groups that live within the parish. Our services and worship put faith into practice through prayer and scripture, music and sacrament.

When planning activities for the year, the incumbent and PCC considered the Charity Commission's guidance on public benefit and, in particular, the specific guidance on charities for the advancement of religion. In particular, we try to enable people to live out their faith as part of our parish community through:

To facilitate this work it is important that the PCC maintains the fabric of St Mark's church and Church Centre.

Achievements and performance

Worship and Prayer

Worshipping God is one of the three elements of our vision at St Mark’s. The PCC is therefore keen to offer a range of services during the week and over the course of the year that our community find both beneficial and spiritually fulfilling. For example, the 8.00 am Book of Common Prayer communion service and Evensong provide a quiet, intimate and reflective environment for worship. Opportunities are provided for people to engage in more outgoing worship at our Sunday morning family services and in parade services where we are joined by a number of the local uniformed organisations in our parish.

2022 saw the final loosening of the constraints imposed by the pandemic. We have seen that some measures, such as streaming of services, have been continued as they were considered by some to be beneficial, pandemic or no pandemic. However, there is still a residual effect of the restrictions whereby many group activities having stopped completely, require time and effort to revive. For example, Messy church only met for some sessions in the summer. Numbers didn’t pick up after Covid and we only had one or two families attending. We therefore decided to take a break and relook at starting again with a relaunch at a later date.

As well as our regular services, we enable our community to celebrate and thank God at milestones of the journey through life. Through baptism we thank God for the gift of life, through marriage public vows are exchanged with God's blessing and through funeral services family and friends express their grief and give thanks for the life which is now complete in this world and to commend the person into God's keeping. 2022 saw a return to normal levels of activity regarding funerals.

Prayer is at the heart of all we do at St Mark’s. The act of bringing our community and our world before God is where two elements of our vision meet - ‘Worshipping God’ and ‘Sharing his love’. As such there are a number of prayer ministries at St Mark’s involving dozens of volunteers. Prayer is offered for those in need at almost all our Sunday and midweek services, both for the unwell and the bereaved. For those who like to receive prayer for healing in person, our Healing Prayer team regularly offers this opportunity. In addition, our Prayer Support Group is on hand to receive both urgent and long-term requests for prayer, which it passes on confidentially to its members.

The Bible Reading Fellowship membership is around 30, with as much as an active program as lockdown restrictions allowed

Pastoral Care

More visits have taken place this year, particularly to individuals in Care Homes, though some phone calls have been made and those who have arranged a funeral in St Mark’s have been contacted. Most of the latter calls were much appreciated but the people involved have not requested further contact. As we emerged from Covid restrictions, it became more obvious that some of the Pastoral Visitors were unable to offer home visits, although some are still making phone calls. Angela Maxwell has taken over from Wendy Brewer as the group co-ordinator

Mission and Evangelism

Our Strategic priorities, derived from analysis and surveys, remain those of

We have pursued these, with the Ministry Leadership Team (MLT) active in establishing ways forward for the past few years. Having established our current position, the MLT has been wound down, leaving the remaining structures to sustain our progress. An overview of some of the events and thinking behind this can be had by referring to the “Review of the year” a few pages on.

Helping those in need is a demonstration of our faith, over £9,000 of our income in 2022 being donated to Christian, relief and charitable causes.

Overseas Mission

St Marks continues to support Busiliwa Faith School, and the year 2022 saw a return to normality as pupils and teachers returned to the school after the damaging pandemics closures. As reported, and it is worth recalling that Uganda had the longest school closures, globally. It was a great joy to see the pupils return to their studies after such a long period.

The school now has 200 pupils distributed across 10 classes, first three years are the nursery section and seven in the primary section. There are some notable highlights to report. Firstly, with a charitable donation the orphanage was completed, kitted out and welcomed its first children. However, the local need is expanding and the orphanage is providing additional capacity to accept new orphans and vulnerable children. Secondly, with a small charitable donation four of the ten classrooms have been built of bricks. The previous classroom structures were of wood and mud walls as is the on-site church. The plan is also to rebuild the church over the longer term. Many Ugandans make handmade bricks from clay if it is good locally as a source of income. Once the bricks have been dried in the sun they are fired in a structure over a number of days. David, the director did this with local people, and secured the source of bricks for the school.

However, the challenges and struggles remain at the beginning of 2023, and the school is in need of our prayers and support. The 10 original orphans have now reached an age when the primary school can no longer support their educational needs. This means that school support cannot provide fees, uniforms and scholastic materials as they move into secondary education. The other challenge is that the area in which the school is located is poor and that the affordable school fees charged at the primary school do not cover the teacher’s salary. The teachers are committed to the school but struggle to make ends meet on their partial salary as the cost of living in Uganda as here has increased dramatically.

Media

After a year off, the VOICE, the parish magazine has restarted .It has been great to have some new contributors on board writing articles, along with our regular favourites. 278 paper magazines are currently being distributed through 28 very kind and welcomed distributors. 62 people subscribe to a digital copy of the magazine.

A web site complements the parish magazine and provides information about all aspects of the work and activities at St Mark's church. It was significantly updated in 2019 and seeks to provide a wide range of information for members of the congregation, the wider community and for those new to the area or to St Mark’s and has provided an alternative way to communicate with those in our community during the pandemic.

Volunteers

We would like to thank all the volunteers who work so hard to make our church the lively, vibrant and welcoming community it is. In particular, we want to mention our churchwardens and service wardens, MLT members and the many other groups and individuals who work so tirelessly on our behalf. There are numerous other centres of activity throughout the parish which have been reviving to varying degrees as we have come out of COVID, gradually recovering. Without going into details these include the following, in addition to activities mentioned above. This is by no means an exhaustive list of all those in the community involved in and contributing to the mission of the Church. (Full details in the APCM report are available)

Prayer Support Group Churchyard Team Christian Aid Liaison
Lionhearts Audio Visual Team Finance/collections
Bilton Churches Together Cleaning Team Events Team
Bell Ringers Ladies Day Group Choir, Organ. Music group
Junior Church Teen Talk Youth Club
Home Groups Bible Reading Fellowship Worship Committee

The Friends of St Mark’s is an association which aims to acquaint a wider group of people with the ongoing work, aims and needs of St Mark’s, and enable them to support its maintenance and mission The Friends off St Marks Committee have not met throughout 2022 as we come out of the covid restrictions. The Friends of St. Marks have not received any funding requests from either The Rector or the PCC during this time. The committee reconvened toward the end of 2022. and activities are planned for 2023

Deanery Synod

2 members of the PCC sat on the Deanery Synod during the year. This provides the PCC with an important link between the parish and the wider structures of the church. There were 3 meetings attended in 2022.

Ecumenical Relationships

"The church is a member of Bilton Churches Together. There has been no contacts or meetings of Bilton Churches Together in 2022, and things are still to revive after the pandemic. However, some specific activities have carried on

The World Day of Prayer, held on the first Friday of March was held in Sacred Heart Catholic Church in March 2022 and is organised by a group of women from all the 4 churches in Bilton. It is run separately to BCT as a single annual event and we hope that this will continue as it is currently the only WDP service held in Rugby.

Financial Review

Overview

In 2022 restrictions on gatherings relaxed and eventually returned to the “new normal”. As far as PCC finances are concerned, this served to increase activity: better attended and more elaborate weddings and a general increase in revenues arising from increased activities such as room rentals. Overall, giving declined, but this was more than compensated for by the higher income from activities, and much higher interest on deposits.

Overall our total assets decreased from £442,107 to £428,677 Unrestricted funds dropped slightly to £146,136 from £147,541 in 2021, still equivalent to around 11-12 months of regular running costs + parish share. This is well beyond the minimum reserve of 6 months of running costs stipulated in our reserves policy. The restricted funds held are £261,208 and £21,333 in endowments. The story of 2022 finances is summarised below.

Income

The “activity related” areas, i.e. Fees from weddings and funerals and rental/printing/magazine sales, were overall higher than expected in the budget by £10,867, at a total value of £23,727.

Planned giving at £74,992, was slightly lower than was hoped for. Miscellaneous donations, e.g. collections, cash band envelopes, were also less than expected – still not returning to pre-pandemic levels. However, we received unexpected income as a single donation of around £12,000 at the end of the year. Interest on deposit accounts was much higher than expected at £4882 (compared to an equivalent of 212 for 2021). Overall income, was around £4,000 up, at £144,722 in 2022 vs. £140,236 in 2021, and also £4,000 better than the budget of £140,287

Expense

We paid our full parish share of £75,000. This was our largest expense. Unlike in 2021, we did not pay an additional £20,000 to the diocese, which went a long way to reducing our costs compared to 2021.

We spent £11,887 from restricted funds on tree work that arose from recommendations in the quinquennial report, and for installing an auto-wind mechanism in the church clock. Not including this figure, Church upkeep (including the churchyard) and administration costs were £48,529 in 2022 vs. £50,110 in 2021, and a budget of £49,313. So, running costs were controlled well. We are fortunate in having fuel prices frozen until Sept 2024 at mid- 2021 levels. Other expenses were similar year on year.

Our policy is to donate 10% of planned giving from our funds This year we donated £9,007. UK donations were £6,050, and International, £2,957.

In addition Fund Raising raised further monies for Christian aid, which was matched by our donation included above, and there were several donations to Deepmore House

Overall expenses were £158,210 in 2022, vs. £165,926 in 2021, and against a budget of £162,110

Future implications

As far as income is concerned we may look to planned and other personal giving remaining at current levels, as the squeeze on private finances continues. It would be unrealistic to assume otherwise. Increase fund-raising may yield extra some income. Income from increased activity (e.g. room hire, weddings) is expected to rise as the effect of the pandemic wears-off.

As for expense, running costs can be contained at around current level for a year or two, but cost inflation will cut in at some point. By and large, the loss we incurred this year was caused by spend on “special projects” – around £12,000. This may be expected to be the case future years. That is, we have, more or less, the income to support normal running costs but any additional projects will have to be met from our accumulated funds, with a focus on using restricted funds where appropriate

Please refer to the approved accounts, attached as an appendix for full details.

Review of the Year

Rector’s Annual Report 2023 (year ending December 2022)

I would like to start my report this year with a huge “Thank you.” And that goes to everyone at St. Mark’s for their understanding and patience in allowing me to have spent the last year on placement with the Diocese as Associate Archdeacon. When I accepted Bishop Christopher’s invitation to undertake this role it was going to be for six months. That was extended to a year and it was becoming quite obvious that a further extension to the Autumn of this year would be very likely. While I would be very happy to continue in this role – which I have found both challenging and fulfilling – I feel it would not be right to continue to do so as I feel this is unfair on the parish. I have become increasingly aware that there are things that need my attention and time – something I have not been able to do in the last 12 months. That said, my travels around the Diocese and the things I have been involved with have given me a number of insights and ideas which may well be finding their way to a church near you soon.

Even though I have not been in a position to give as much time to St. Mark’s in the last year, I am very pleased to say that with such a good and strong team of clergy and wardens working together things continue to move in the right direction. There has been some really good stuff going on and although we are still not where we were pre-pandemic (no churches are in reality) things are moving in the right direction.

In my previous report I was very concerned by the number of volunteers we had lost during the lockdown and the seeming reluctance of others to step into the many vacant roles we had. While there are still some gaps, I am very pleased to say that with doing some re-thinking about how we do things we now have a number of new volunteers in a number of roles helping to support the life of the church. In the last year we have seen new volunteers join our readers and intercessors group, new people become helpers with our children’s groups and with our baptism services. A new team of Sacristans has been created under Joy’s watchful eye which has taken a great deal of pressure off Glenn and me, especially between the 8 and 10am services.

A whole new team was brought together to work with James Yates from Thrive Youth Ministries and to think through what we wanted to with our ministry to children and young people. That is still meeting occasionally and thinking through our next moves in this area. More recently the prayer circle has been re-launched as the new Prayer Support Group which has a wider remit than just praying for the sick and those who have died. This will help to underpin some of the initiatives we are starting on the right foundation – that of prayer.

A growing number of social and open events have been held in the last year. In the last few months alone the Snowdrop Saturday brought over a hundred people into church, many of whom are not regular attenders. This helped our Quiz Night in March to be a great success, again with 100 people in attendance. We look forward to more social and outreach events in the future.

In recent months we have been joined by Rev. Eira Hale who has been strengthening links with the schools in the Bilton School Federation which includes Bilton Church of England Junior School. Eira has been a very regular presence in the schools and has managed to forge many new relationships and given us many ideas to thinking about in future. One of this is starting an “Open the Book” group to take bible stories into school in a fun and engaging way. Eira’s placement with us finished on the 31st March but I am sure the fruit of the work she has been doing will be seen for a long time

to come, especially as her efforts have shown that we do need to commit some of our financial resources to employing that Children and Families Worker I mentioned in my report last year.

For many years now much of the forward thinking and forward planning in the parish has been done by the Ministry Leadership Team. In recent years the number of people on this group has dwindled and we have struggled to find new members. It was felt that after some 22 years of existence perhaps there were other ways of looking at our future ministry. With the success of the Coordinating Group for the young people we thought that bringing people together who had a heart for specific initiatives may be a better way to operate for a while as this would mean people would only need to offer time for the duration of a project and it might bring newer folks with fresher eyes into the mix. With that in mind we disbanded the MLT. I am enormously grateful for the work that the MLT has done over the years and for the people who have served on it (too many to mention here) and for their hard work, dedication and willingness to be part of this group. As new initiatives come up we will be asking/approaching people who have interests in those areas to get involved with them.

One of these new areas of work for the remainder of this year and into next is the solar panel project. We are in the early stages of talking to contractors and design engineers about putting a solar panel array on the church roofs along with some battery storage and possibly even some car charging points in the car park

While the road to recovery for many churches has been slow, I feel we have made good progress over the last year and in the coming year we need to continue to build on what we have already achieved.

As always, I am enormously grateful to those who do so much to ensure that things in the parish run as smoothly as possible. I would particularly like to mention, Glenn who has been a great support and a valued colleague. His Curacy comes to end shortly and I am very pleased that he has decided that he wants to remain with us at St. Mark’s. He will be Licensed as an Associate Minister at some point in the future. I would also like to thank our Wardens Team Marion Ainslow, Irene Landless and Christine Assheton. They have done a great deal in the last year while I have been working for the Diocese. Irene is stepping down this year after another good stint as Warden and I am sure you would want to join with me in thanking her for all that she has done.

I also want to thank our Parish Secretary Holly Byatt without whom things would grind to a halt. And to all of you who contribute in many ways to the life of the church. You are too many to name here, but I hope you know who you are and know that you are thoroughly appreciated for all you do.

With every blessing

Tim Cockell

Rector

Structure, governance and management

Administrative information

St Mark's Church is situated in Church Walk, Bilton, Rugby. It is part of the Diocese of Coventry within the Church of England. The correspondence address is St Marks Parish Office, Church Walk, Bilton, Rugby, CV22 7LX.

Parish Church Council

The PCC is governed by two Church of England Measures - The Parochial Church Councils (Powers) Measure 1956 as amended, which defines the principal function of the PCC, and the Church Representation Rules 2011.

The method of appointment of PCC members is set out in the Church Representation Rules. Members are either ex-officio or elected by the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM). Representatives on the Deanery Synod and elected members normally serve for three years, unless elected to fill a vacancy. Readers and Co-opted members serve for one year. All members of the congregation are encouraged to register on the Electoral Roll and to stand for election to the PCC.

The PCC members are responsible for making decisions on all matters of general concern and importance to the parish, including deciding on how the funds of the PCC are to be spent.

The PCC is registered with the Charity Commission as a charity (number 1137095).

During 2021 the full PCC met six times via Zoom and face-to-face. Given its wide responsibilities, the PCC has a number of committees each dealing with a particular aspect of parish life, each of which is responsible to the PCC. These Committees met between meetings and reports of their deliberations were received by the full PCC and discussed as necessary.

Standing Committee

This is the only committee required by law. It has the power to transact the business of the PCC between its meetings, subject to any directions given by the Council. It oversees the general financial dimension of the work of St Mark's by monitoring income and expenditure, budgeting, maintaining appropriate financial controls and co-coordinating the annual review of the Christian Stewardship of money through planned giving.

Worship Committee

Attends to matters relating to worship in the Church, planning services, drafting orders of service and associated work.

Ministry Leadership Team (MLT)

The St Mark's MLT was launched in 2001 and commissioned in January 2005. It is a collaborative team of lay and ordained people, working together, under the authority of the PCC, to lead, envision, enable and release all God's people at St Mark's for mission and ministry in the whole of life.

Other groups that met via Zoom during the year included a Pastoral and Nurture Group, the Healing Team and the Prayer Circle. These groups include both PCC members as well as people not on the PCC.

PCC members / officers

Incumbent Rev'd Timothy Cockell Rector

Curates Rev'd Glenn Lowde

Wardens Marion Ainslow Irene Landless Deputy Wardens Christine Assheton

Representatives on Deanery Synod

Patricia Howes, I Landless

PCC Members in 2021 – new members approved/former members leaving date May 27 2021 unless otherwise stated

----- Start of picture text -----
Tim Cockell Chair
Rachel Davison Sec Co-opted again
Irene Landless Vice Chair
Patsy Howes
Christine Assheton
Heather Hemelryck deceased
Marion Ainslow
Alex Lover
Alex Clark
Wendy Brewer
Linda Allen
Glenn Lowde
David Potts Treasurer Co-opted again
Pauline Graham
Helen Baker
Lauren Beadle
----- End of picture text -----

Report Approved by PCC Chair on _25-06-23_ and signed by:

Rev'd Timothy Cockell, Rector

APPENDIX TO Annual Report of Church Activities 2022

ST MARK'S CHURCH, BILTON, RUGBY Charity number 1137095

Annual Financial Report and Financial Statements of the Parochial Church Council for the year ended 31 December 2022

Rector Rev'd. Tim Cockell

Bank

Lloyds Bank PLC Church Street Rugby CV21 3PH

Independent Examiner

Mr Brian Cheney 358 Newbold Road Rugby CV21 1EG

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Table of Contents

1 Summary ........................................................................................................................................................ 5 Summary ........................................................................................................................................................ 5
2 Receipts and Payments Accounts Year on Year ............................................................................................. 6
2.1 Receipts and Payments Year on Year - Commentary ............................................................................ 7
3 Performance versus Budget ........................................................................................................................... 8
3.1 Performance versus budget - Commentary .......................................................................................... 9
4 Statement of Assets and Liabilities .............................................................................................................. 10
4.1 Statement of Assets and Liabilities (Commentary) ............................................................................. 11
5 Movements of Funds ................................................................................................................................... 12
5.1 Explanation of Movements ................................................................................................................. 13
5.1.1 Restricted Funds ............................................................................................................................. 13
5.1.2 Unrestricted Funds, included designated funds ............................................................................. 13
6 Further Notes to the Accounts .................................................................................................................... 15
6.1 Donations To charities ........................................................................................................................ 15
6.2 Payments to the Diocese for funds collected on their behalf ............................................................. 15
6.3 Accounting Policies ............................................................................................................................. 16
6.3.1 Accounting Conventions ................................................................................................................. 16
6.3.2 Reserves policy ............................................................................................................................... 16
6.3.3 Restricted Funds Policy ................................................................................................................... 16
6.3.4 Adjustment of Beginning of year Assets ......................................................................................... 16
7 2023 Budget ................................................................................................................................................. 17
8 Examiners Report ......................................................................................................................................... 19

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1 Summary

NOTE: Throughout this document, numbers may be rounded to the nearest £’000 where deemed appropriate

Overview

In 2022 restrictions on gatherings relaxed and eventually returned to the “new normal”. As far as PCC finances are concerned, this served to increase activity: better attended and more elaborate weddings and a general increase in revenues arising from increased activities such as room rentals. Overall, giving declined, but this was more than compensated for by the higher income from activities, and much higher interest on deposits.

Overall our total assets decreased from £442,107 to £428,677 Unrestricted funds dropped slightly to £146,136 from £147,541 in 2021, still equivalent to around 11-12 months of regular running costs + parish share. This is well beyond the minimum reserve of 6 months of running costs stipulated in our reserves policy. The restricted funds held are £261,208 and £21,333 in endowments. The story of 2022 finances is summarised below.

Income

The “activity related” areas, i.e. Fees from weddings and funerals and rental/printing/magazine sales, were overall higher than expected in the budget by £10,867, at a total value of £23,727.

Planned giving at £74,992, was slightly lower than was hoped for. Miscellaneous donations, e.g. collections, cash band envelopes, were also less than expected – still not returning to pre-pandemic levels. However we received unexpected income as a single donation of around £12,000 at the end of the year.

Interest on deposit accounts was much higher than expected at £4882 (compared to an equivalent of 212 for 2021)

Overall income, was around £4,000 up, at £144,722 in 2022 vs. £140,236 in 2021, and almost £4,000 better than the budget of £140,287

Expense

We paid our full parish share of £75,000. This was our largest expense. Unlike in 2021, we did not pay an additional £20,000 to the diocese, which went a long way to reducing our costs compared to 2021

We spent £11,887 from restricted funds on tree work that arose from recommendations in the quinquennial report, and for installing an auto-wind mechanism in the church clock

Not including this figure, Church upkeep ( including the churchyard) and administration costs were £48,529 in 2022 vs. £50,110 in 2021, and a budget of £49,313. So, running costs were controlled well. We are fortunate in having fuel prices frozen until Sept 2024 at mid- 2021 levels. Other expenses were similar year on year.

Our policy is to donate 10% of planned giving from our funds This year we donated £9,007. UK donations were £6,050 , and International, £2,957. In addition Fund Raising raised further monies for Christian aid, which was matched by our donation included above, and there were several donations to Deepmore House

Overall expenses were £158,210 in 2022, vs. £165,926 in 2021, and against a budget of £162,110

Future implications

As far as income is concerned we may look to planned and other personal giving remaining at current levels, as the squeeze on private finances continues. It would be unrealistic to assume otherwise. Increase fund-raising may yield extra some income. Income from increased activity (e.g. room hire, weddings) is expected to rise as the effect of the pandemic wears-off.

As for expense, running costs can be contained at around current level for a year or two, but cost inflation will cut in at some point. By and large, the loss we incurred this year was caused by spend on “special projects” – around £12,000. This may be expected to be the case future years. That is, we have, more or less, the income to support normal running costs but any additional projects will have to be met from our accumulated funds, with a focus on using restricted funds where appropriate

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2.1 Receipts and Payments Year on Year - Commentary

This table shows the Profits and Loss for St Marks PCC for 2022, compared to 2021. It excludes the activity of the Friends of St Marks. However their assets are shown later, as they are related to St Marks.

INCOME

Income is up over 2021. Most of this can be attributed to a large donation in December of approaching £12,000. Planned giving was broadly the same both in terms of total amount, and the average given by each individual. Unlike in 2021, there were no legacies, which yielded around £6,000 in 2021.

In terms of the other individual-giving categories, income was in total about the same year on year in the categories shown, with a little variation from category-to-category. However, we were expecting it to rise in 2022.

Earnings from rentals, wedding and funerals has increased as levels of activity and attendance has increased as pandemic restrictions have lifted

EXPENDITURE

Falling from £165,926 to £158,201 (including unrealised gains/losses on endowment funds), this has decreased overall by about £8,000 mainly because we have not paid an extra £20,000 over and above our parish share to the diocese.

The unrealised loss on endowment funds was £1,687 in 2022. Other costs have increased slightly across the board, by around £10,000. If one looks at the detail of what has been going on, however, we have actually been adept at reducing normal running costs by about £2,000, and have spent more than usual on a number of one-off projects ( mainly autoclock winding, and a lot of tree work following quinquennial report recommendations). These totalled nearly £12,000. So the increased expenditure has been more along the lines of investment, rather than increased overheads

A key factor in keeping overheads down was the fixed price contract for fuel.

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3.1 Performance versus budget - Commentary

At the outset of 2022, a budget was formulated on the basis of what we knew (at the time) would be our income and our expenditure. On the income side, we expected a rise in giving, and a modest rise in income earned from rentals, weddings, printing etc. On the expenditure side we expected overall running costs to be about the same, but with extra spending on planning solar power installations, auto-clock winding, and work in the churchyard on trees, as per the quinquennial report.

So, how did we do versus budget?

INCOME

Overall, giving by individuals and fund-raising was lower than hoped for in the budget – about £11,000 lower. (and that includes the extraordinary large unexpected donation of around £12,000 in December 2022). This may be because the budget was over optimistic, under-estimating the economic squeeze experienced by parishioners.

However fees and rental and interest earned was also much higher than expected in the budget, by over £15,000.

So, overall income was up by £4,000 compared to budget. (£15,000 minus spent£11,000)

EXPENDITURE

This was more or less according to plan. Running costs were kept under control overall, and we spent what was planned on our major projects, including charitable giving. We did not manage to make the progress that we expected on Solar Power, because of the company we were working with was inundated with work.

Overall we spent around £4,000 less than budget

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

We made a loss of £13,488 but this was about £8,000 less than we expected in the budget.

IMPLICATION FOR NEXT YEARS BUDGET

Without going into a lot of detail, we shall take forward the following lessons

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4.1 Statement of Assets and Liabilities (Commentary)

There has been a reduction in our assets, from £442,107 to £428,677 on a ‘like for like’ basis. Note that whereas the activities of the Friends of St Marks (FOSM) are excluded from the profit and loss reports, the assets they control are included under this statement of assets

Unrestricted Funds

The unrestricted assets total is £146,136 and is equivalent to around 11-12 months of base spending (in compliance with our reserves policy). £135,857 is held in interest bearing accounts, in line with our policy to maximise returns. All other monies, restricted and endowments are held in interest bearing accounts.

Restricted Funds in Deposit Accounts

The majority of our assets are held here, a total of £251,775 held in funds that can only be used for specific purposes. See the “Further notes to the Accounts” for more details

Endowment Funds

These funds now total £21,333 at the end of 2022. The market value has decreased from 2021, though given recent stock market rallies they have recently recovered somewhat. These are not funds we can ever spend, except in very unlikely circumstances.

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5 Movements of Funds

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5.1 Explanation of Movements

5.1.1 Restricted Funds

Apart from interest earned, there were no net movements in the funds apart from

These totalled £11,887, with £3,912 being spent on tree work, and £7,975 on auto-winding.

In both cases these appear as a transfer to the main current account, from which invoices are paid. This has been done after the actual spend, to maximise interest gains.

The curacy fund interest is paid direct into the current account, as does income from the endowment funds, and appears in the receipts and payments accounts

5.1.2 Unrestricted Funds, included designated funds

The statements of assets, along with the accounts for receipts and payments show the activity, at a summary level for these funds.

Within unrestricted Funds (loosely called the “General Fund”) some of the assets can be considered divided into a number of “designated funds”.

Fund 2022 closing balance Net Movements 2023 closing balance
LegacyFund £66,401 0 £66,401
YoungPeople Fund £5,219 0 £5,219

The effect on designated funds appears in the table above, and can be ignored. For all practical purposes, the subdivision into designated funds is unnecessary and unwieldy, and the recommendation to the PCC is to merge them in with the general fund, as is its prerogative.

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6 Further Notes to the Accounts

6.1 Donations To charities

Several donations were made from PCC income to charities and these are listed below

Hope 4 Rugby
Rugby Foodbank
CAP
Rugby Street Pastors
Cov&War Warm Spaces
Thrive
SUBTOTAL (UK)
Ukraine Appeal
FWH Creations

Christian Aid
SUBTOTAL (International)
TOTAL		 £ 1,000
£ 2,000
£ 1,200
£ 600
£ 500
£ 750
£ 6,050
£ 750
£ 1,500
£ 707
£ 2,957
£ 9,007

In addition, the PCC acts as a conduit for specific fund raising campaigns, where neither the donations given, or monies disbursed appear in the accounts. For example:-

£231 was donated to Deepmore Road Hostel via this method, in the form of food bought and delivered, and paid for by donors. £137 raised by Junior Church went to Rugby Food bank. Open Gardens raised £707 for Christian aid, which was matched by the PCC (see above)

This all adds up to slightly more than £10,000.

In addition various collections at funerals go direct to charities, and are not accounted for here.

6.2 Payments to the Diocese for funds collected on their behalf

Part of the fees for wedding and funerals, plus a few other services, are due to the Diocese. In effect The PCC acts as agents. The income received for this is not counted in our receipts and payments, nor do the payments to the diocese. Payments are quarterly, in arrears, and by convention are paid to the diocese whether the PCC has actually been paid or not.

In 2022 collections and payments were as follows

Fees due for 2021 activity, paid in 2022 £ 2,219
Fees due for 2022 activity, paid in 2022 £ 6,801
TOTAL paid to Diocese in 2022 £ 9,020

Note that all fees due in 2022 were paid in 2022, with none left to pay in the following quarter, as has been the practice in previous years.

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6.3 Accounting Policies

6.3.1 Accounting Conventions

With due regard to Church of England and Charity Committee rules, and our likely gross income being very unlikely to exceed £250,000 we can prepare accounts on a “Receipts and Payments Accounting” basis. In These accounts there are no accruals and no consideration of depreciation of assets. All figures in the Accounts come from transactional recording direct into the SAGE, a widely used and well-regarded Accounting Software Package, and we operate within its conventions for balance sheets and profit and loss reporting

Invoiced sums go directly into the Profit and loss accounts in the year in which the invoice is raised, and at the same time are entered as an asset as “debtors”. Payment of the invoice transfers from debtors to cash. Money received as cash, but not the property of the PCC, e.g. Key deposits, wedding deposits, fees collected by the PCC as an agent do not go into the profit and loss. They are recorded as cash assets, and also as liabilities.

Hence normally simple receipts and payments accounting in terms of cash, requires that one must also take account of not just the Profit and loss statement but the movement in assets and liabilities, and the fact that cash held in the bank account is not the same as cash owned by the PCC. This is demonstrated in the section called “Movement of Funds” in the accounts.

Any spreadsheets are used only for taking data from SAGE and reformatting it.

6.3.2 Reserves policy

At the request of the Diocese, in a previous year, the PCC reviewed its policy on the balance of free unrestricted reserves it should hold to cover any emergency situations that may arise from time to time and it was agreed that a balance equal to six months unrestricted expenditure should be held plus designated funds to cover new planned and agreed expenditure over a maximum period of five years.

It is the PCC's policy to invest the majority of our fund's balances with the CCLA Church of England Deposit Fund.

6.3.3 Restricted Funds Policy

In 2021 it was also decided by the PCC to assess spending rigorously with a view to taking funds out of restricted accounts, where it was permissible to do so.

6.3.4 Adjustment of Beginning of year Assets

In 2021 accounts the end of year statement of assets attempted to show cash in the bank account as a PCC asset, only adjusted by the liability to the diocese. That is, a rather crude interpretation of receipts and payments accounting. In the 2022 accounts, assets and liabilities have been more rigorously accounted for in both the P&L and in the statement of assets at the end of 2022. Hence it was necessary to readjust the 2021 end of year assets to take account of assets and liabilities to the same extent. Hence a one off adjustment was needed to get to the start point that we should have been at had we always accounted according the processes outline in 6.3.1 above. So the end-2021 position was taken from known positions on (a) contents of bank accounts and petty cash (b) accounting for cash that was in our account but which we did not own,e.g deposits, money collected for draw club prize money, money that we owed HMRC, money that we owed vergers etc as fees already earned (c) accounting for money that was due to us from invoices raised but not yet paid – not shown in cash but still counted as an assets.

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7 2023 Budget

Based on the rationale set out previously the 2023 budget is

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