One Ark

ONE ARK PAROCHIAL PARISH COUNCIL (PPC)
TERMS OF REFERENCE

Context

1. The ‘One Ark’ initiative brings together the parishes of Salcombe and Malborough with South Huish into one single parish of Malborough, Salcombe and South Huish. The Parish Churches, All Saints (Malborough) and Holy Trinity (Salcombe), are supported in the ‘One Ark’ mission of the new parish by the chapelries of Holy Trinity (Galmpton) and St Clements (Hope Cove).[1]

2. As a consequence of this union, the ‘One Ark’ initiative will also see the merging of the two Parochial Church Councils (PCC) from Salcombe and Malborough with the District Church Council (DCC) from South Huish into one new Malborough, Salcombe and South Huish Parochial Parish Council (PPC). In tandem with this merger there is an assumption of rationalisation of administration organisation and processes to refocus energy on the pastoral mission of the new parish – a mission that must grow!

Purpose

3. As an executive committee of the unified parish - consisting of clergy and churchwardens of the parish, together with representatives of the laity – the PPC is responsible for the financial affairs of the parish and the maintenance of its assets, and, critically, for promoting the mission of the church and its role in the local community; that stretches from Salcombe to Hope Cove and from South Huish to Bolberry.

4. Its powers and duties are defined by certain Acts of Parliament and other legislation, principally the Parochial Church Councils (Powers) Measure 1956.

PPC Members

5. Chaired by the incumbent Vicar, the PPC will consist of up to 12 voting members plus up to three Deanery Representatives, the Parish Administrator (secretary to the PPC) and the Parish Treasurer.

6. The following officers are legally required on the PPC: a Vice Chair of the PPC, Electoral Roll Officer, Secretary, Treasurer and Safeguarding Officer. The Electoral Roll Officer and Safeguarding Officer must report to the PPC, but are not necessarily de facto members of the PPC. Specific to the context of the new parish the following roles have also been specified: a Sextant (overseeing the church grounds and churchyards in the Parish), a Buildings & Facilities Officer, or individual church representatives (overseeing the material state of each of the 4 church buildings), a Synod Representative (responsible for coordinating the link between parish and the deanery), a Mission Coordinator, and a Fundraising/Media Coordinator.

All specified roles indicated above are shown at the Annex to these terms of reference. They must be on the electoral roll of the new unified parish and will all be subject to election at the Annual Parochial Parish General Meeting (APPGM) that is open to all on the electoral roll. Members of the PPC should be prepared to serve for three years[2] and must expect (on putting their name forward for election) to serve for at least two years. If they so wish, PPC members can serve longer than 3 years, as otherwise, their knowledge and experience could be lost to the PPC. The exception is any Assistant Priest elected to one of the non-Warden representative roles.[3]

7. PPC members elected to the positions/roles noted at Paragraph 9 and at the Annex are responsible for developing the modus operandi for their respective pan-Parish roles. It is expected most will form teams of representatives from each congregation in pursuit of their re-designated roles. Proposed terms of reference for each of these teams/sub-committees are to be agreed with the PPC along with an annually refreshed intended action plan for that role. Ideally those action plans should be submitted to the PPC in good time before the APPGM.

8. The criteria for election to the PPC is independent of where candidates reside in the new unified Parish. The only exceptions to this are three of the four Church Wardens who will be specifically elected to represent their specific congregation in the parish. The fourth Church Warden (without specific portfolio) will provide the link to the St Peter’s Foundation (see Para 27 & Annex). There is an expectation each Warden will have a deputy to assist in his/her duties. Such a deputy can deputise, when required, at a PPC meeting when their respective Warden is not available. Beyond the specificity of three of the Wardens being tied to their respective congregations, the PPC must ensure that its composition reflects a reasonable balance of representation between congregations throughout the parish.

9. Two laity members will be co-opted to the PPC. Namely the Parish Treasurer and the Parish Administrator. Both are voting members of the PPC.[4] Their terms of office are subject to separate contractual arrangements – given obvious conflicts of interest both co-opted members are not voting members when it comes to their respective contractual arrangements.

PPC and Official Parish Meetings

10. The PPC will be scheduled to meet every 2 months – this will be normally on the last Thursday of the month.[5] This periodicity may be relaxed or shortened as required but its frequency must recognise time required for subordinate bodies/committees/groups to address their responsibilities. The quorum for any PPC meeting should be considered to be seven (Chair plus three Wardens (or deputies) plus three others). If the Chair cannot be there for the whole of the meeting, then the Vice Chair can deputise.

11. The Clergy, Wardens, and Parish Treasurer will meet on the third Tuesday of each month (apart from August) to address immediate administration concerns/issues. The Clergy, Wardens and Parish Administrator will meet monthly to address rosters and service schedules.

12. The PPC Secretary is responsible for circulation of the agenda, minutes and actions arising and other papers at least seven working days before each meeting for meetings at Paragraph 10 and 11.

13. All sub-committee/team meetings (see Paragraph 7) established under the PPC are administered solely by the nominated PPC lead. Timings and periodicity of their respective meetings must ensure the output feeds into the timing for the next PPC meeting.

14. PPC meetings’ timings must be scheduled to feed into the Annual Parochial Parish General Meeting (APPGM) usually timed for mid-March each year.[6]

PPC Core Role Description

15. General Overview: Legally, the PPC is responsible for the finances of the parish. It also has ultimate responsibility for the care and maintenance of all church buildings and their contents, and proper care of all people under its employ. It has a voice in the forms of service used by the church and may make representations to the bishop on matters that affect the welfare of the parish. Critically the PPC must recognise that the management of buildings and money must not obscure the PPC’s fundamental role in wider areas of the Mission of the Church. At times this means the spiritual mission, by necessity, will become the priority when considering allocation of parish funds and resources.

16. Attendance and Preparation: PPC members should aim to attend most meetings and to read minutes, financial statements and papers before each meeting. All preparatory paperwork should, ideally, be circulated at least seven days before any meeting. PPC members should also attend, when able, major activities not just in the parish but in the Diocese and Deanery, so that they feel part of the wider church family.

17. Financial Oversight: Advised and guided by the Parish Treasurer, each PPC member has fiduciary responsibility for ensuring that the PPC complies with requirements of both charity law and current church accounting regulations. This should include: receiving regular financial updates; ensuring procedures exist to appropriately approve payments and that all cheques are signed by two authorised PPC members; ensuring that the service offertories and other monies are appropriately supervised; generating the Annual Report & Accounts and submitting these documents to the APPGM for approval, then sending them on to the Diocese (and Charity Commission if required).

18. Financial Strategy: The PPC decides corporately how the Parish's money is to be raised and spent. This is a key mission decision as well as a financial one.

19. Mission Planning: The PPC, led by the parish clergy, should ensure that there is an up-to-date and active parish mission plan, which asks and answers the following questions:

• what is the mission of God in our parish;

• what ministries do we need for this mission;

• what resources do we need for these ministries?

20. Outreach: The PPC needs to work with the incumbent Vicar to promote within the parish the whole mission of the Church - proclaiming the gospel, growing disciples and serving the community - to enable every member of the church to play a full part. This includes all church schools in the parish which are central to the mission of the parish. Outreach must be included in Mission planning (Paragraph 19).

21. Safeguarding: A key aspect of the PPC’s duties is awareness of the Diocesan strategy on safeguarding and protection of the vulnerable (to ensure that the necessary checks have been made on those members who work with children and vulnerable adults).

22. Buildings & Facilities: The PPC is responsible for the church, ancillary buildings (in particular the Parsonage in Hope Cove) and churchyards/graveyards. This includes all aspects of Health & Safety and associated risk assessment, fulfilling the heritage requirements on buildings, insurance and maintenance work.

23. Employer: The PPC acts as the employer of our churches’ paid workers. Accordingly, the PPC must keep abreast of relevant employment legislation and processes for proper management of its employees’ terms and conditions. The PPC is responsible for drawing up all contracts of employment, where applicable. In that the PPC must be an equal opportunities employer that does not discriminate on the grounds of ethnic origin, race, age, disability, gender or sexual orientation.[7]

24. Visibility & Fundraising: Key to developing outreach and mission and coordinating the activities of the parish is coordination of access, and contents delivered, to various media outlets. The PPC has specific responsibility for development of the 3 in 1 parish magazine to reflect the one ark and not just separate congregations.[8] Hand in glove with this is coordination of social media access that with the formation of the one parish needs to be unified.[9] Coordination of pan-Parish fundraising must be coordinated with such efforts to enhance the Church’s visibility in the new parish.

Assumptions & Constraints

25. Structure: With unification comes the assumption, both in theory and practice, that one PPC administers to the whole of the new unified parish. Temptation to re-establish PCC/DCCs based on each church must be resisted. Confidence that all corners of the unified parish will be addressed equally by the new PPC is fundamental to the success of the ‘One Ark’ initiative. Local interests (for each of the churches) will be addressed firstly by representation by the respective Wardens and secondly by role-specific subcommittees, on which laity from each church are invited to serve (as shown at the Annex).

26. Finances: With unification it is assumed the resources available to the component parts of parish will be consolidated into a single pot, administered by the new Parish Treasurer; who in turn is overseen by the Finance Management Committee (FMC).[10] Requests for monies/expenditure from that pot will be focussed through the Treasurer. For non-routine or previously unauthorised expenditure the Treasurer must revert to the PPC, via the FMC, for their guidance and decision (the PPC will necessarily have to formally establish any delegated powers to the Treasurer to cover routine expenditure and the FMC as its authorised sub-committee).

27. Bequests:[11] Bequests to churches are made from time to time. Some will predate the unified parish. It is key to the principles of the ‘One Ark’ initiative that the mindset, and no less so when it comes to financial affairs, should be of one parish pot available for pan-parish purposes. However, to ensure any local sensitivities are properly addressed, a Vicar and Wardens’ Bequest sub-committee will provide the governance over the use of all bequests.

28. Trusts & Restricted Bequests:[12] There are a number of Trusts or restricted bequests held by churches in the unified parish that are restricted by covenant in their use. Bequests with covenants attached must be administered by the Vicar, the relevant Warden and Parish Treasurer. It is hoped, in due course, that governance of such constrained bequests should fall under the ambit of the broader Vicar & Wardens’ Bequest sub-committee (see Paragraph 27). It is assumed all Trusts will continue to be run in accordance with their extant deeds and governance regimes. It is also assumed that trusteeship will naturally continue to associate with the respective church. Requests to each Trust from the PPC should be made formally via the Parish Treasurer who, it is hoped, will receive routine updates from the Trusts with respect to their respective financial positions. It is assumed respective Wardens will represent the interests of the individual trusts on the PPC. [13]

29. St Peter’s Foundation: The foundation is a charity by incorporation, within the Diocese of Exeter[13], and more specifically within the parish of Malborough, Salcombe and South Huish. Its aim, to provide and develop intentional Christian communities, aligns with many aspects of the mission of the parish but is, nevertheless, wholly separate (and thus not under the PCC ambit).

That said there is a symbiotic relationship between parish and foundation, both of which fall under the purview of the Vicar. Accordingly, it is assumed St Peter’s business will have impact on parish business and vice versa. Consequently, it is an aspiration that the fourth Church Warden, without portfolio, be appointed as one of the foundation’s trustees and thereby become the direct link into the PPC for all foundation issues of interest/import to the parish. Additionally, it is intended that St Peter’s interns will routinely act as Vergers in each of the parish churches for weddings and funerals in order to provide ‘coal face’ experience for those considering future ministry in the church. Payment for this goes to the St Peter’s Foundation to help subsidise the Interns’ allowances.

30. Holy Trinity Church Salcombe Conservation Trust: This is a registered charity that raises money towards the costs of improvement, repair, restoration and unplanned maintenance of the fabric of Holy Trinity Church Salcombe and its churchyard.[14] It lies outside the purview of the PPC but necessarily has direct interest in the output of the PPC. The working relationship of this charity with the new PPC should marry that for all other trusts as highlighted above (Paragraph 28).

31. Malborough Feoffee: Monies from the Feoffee is invested in The Church Lands Charity.[15] The object of this charity is the well-being and upkeep of the fabric of Malborough Church and the surrounding graveyard. The working relationship of this charity with the new PPC should marry that for all other trusts as highlighted above (Paragraph 28).

Terms of Reference Review

32. These terms of reference were reviewed in June 2023 and will remain in force for no longer than another five years. By then, it is hoped the ‘One Ark’ initiative will have become embedded in all aspects of our parish’s life. Renewed/refreshed PPC terms of reference will therefore be required in 2028 (or before, if an earlier review is felt to be necessary).

Chairman PPC

Rev Daniel A. French

September 2023

Footnotes

[1] According to the listing from 2008, St Clements is not a Chapel of Ease but rather a Licensed Place of Worship, i.e. it is not consecrated. In principle this could be checked definitively as there would be a record of consecration. The date of the license appears to be 1861. Again, according to the list, Holy Trinity Galmpton is a Chapel of Ease and not a Parish Church and it is not shown as a Parish Church on the national website.

[2] Church of England direction indicates a Warden should hold the post for no more than 6 years.

[3] At the formation of the new Parish specific arrangements might be made to ensure continuity into the new Parish. Accordingly, Wardens who previously held office in the old parishes as the new parish formed can shorten this assumed minimal period by agreement.

[4] This requires each to be declared member of the Church of England. If not another member of the PPC will be nominated to oversee those voting interests.

[5] Care should be taken to deconflict from civil parish and town council meeting timings. [13] The Bishop of Exeter appoints the foundation’s trustees.

[6] The inaugural year might require this date to slip right to accommodate the stand-up of new working practices and teams

[7] Where employment involves ministry per se (eg paid pastoral assistant, youth work and interns) then the person involved should comply to the Church of England's guidelines on Human Sexuality GS 382 (https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-10/human%20sexuality%20ch5_0.pdf). All clergy and trainee ministers are required to do this. It is thus only fair that those who are taken on in some form of ministry should also do this. The Equality Act allows for this dispensation, but it is not and should not include non-ministry employment, secretarial, administrative, music directing, cleaning, etc.

[8] This will require specific review of the style and how contributions are made/coordinated.

[9] This might require PPC members with no specific role to recommend how we evolve Parish contributions to social media.[14] The Declaration of Trust (as amended on 31st March 2023) states: “the trustees shall stand possessed of the trust fund and make grants, at the absolute discretion of the trustees, in response to formal requests from the Parochial Parish Council for assistance with the costs associated with the improvement, repair, restoration and maintenance of the fabric of Holy Trinity Church Salcombe and its churchyard, valued community assets of historical importance, to enable their continued use by members of the public, residents and visitors alike, for the advancement of the Christian religion and other, broader activities for the public benefit.

[10] See separate Terms of Reference for the Finance Management Committee. Chaired by a nominated member of the PPC, the FMC should consist of the Parish Treasurer, three members of the PPC (ideally with those having personal association to one of the three main congregations in the Parish) and others from time to time the committee deem necessary to co-opt.

[11] For the purposes of these terms of reference a bequest is a legacy given without condition or covenant that might be used by the parish as it deems appropriate.

12] For the purpose of these terms of reference a trust or restricted bequest is a gift established either as a trust fund or a legacy with specific covenants attached that need to be administered in relation to a specific church or previous parish.Charity Commission Register Number 1085481

[15] https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/204067