The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion is refocusing the work of the Anglican Communion Office. Staff employed by the Anglican Consultative Council will focus on supporting the Instruments of Communion and having a co-ordinating role; while much of the programatic activity will be carried out more effectively through provinces, regionally or other agencies.
The Standing Committee is currently consulting staff about the proopsals. This page will contain links to information and resources and will be updated as the consultation progresses.
The ACC and its Standing Committee value the staff working to further the mission of God across the Anglican Communion.
In May 2020, the Standing Committee commissioned a Committee to review, reprioritise and recommend changes to the objectives, activities and work programme of the Anglican Communion Office. Although the review was undertaken during the Covid-19 pandemic, it was broad-based and sought to identify what the churches of the Anglican Communion need from the central office in order to serve the mission of God faithfully as the body of Christ rather than to just realign the programme in the light of a likely reduction in financial resources.
The Standing Committee received the report of the review at its September meeting and agreed its recommendations in principle. A sub-group was set up to provide a more detailed report and specific recommendations for implementation of the report to the Committee in December. The Standing Committee agreed recommendations made by the sub-group. The resulting change in staffing requirements will trigger potential redundancies among the current ACC staff cohort.
The Standing Committee, at its December meeting, committed itself to a full consultation process with staff, to seek to avoid compulsory redundancies and to take steps to mitigate redundancies through measures set out in the redundancy policy. Staff under notice of redundancy will have the right to reasonable time off to seek other work, attend interviews and undertake training. The Standing Committee acknowledges that the coming weeks can be difficult and stressful and invite staff to avail themselves of the support offered through the Employee Assistance Programme.
The recommendations for implementation affect the Anglican Communion Office staff cohort whose roles are funded from core funding. Those externally funded in the United Nations Representation Team and the Theological Education Team are not affected by the proposals set out here, however staff whose roles sit partly under these teams but who also have discrete core funded elements to their role will be within the scope of this paper in relation to their core funded roles.
As staff of other legal entities not controlled or managed by the ACC, staff of the Anglican Alliance and the Lambeth Conference Company are outside the scope of the review and its recommendations in relation to their roles for those entities.
Although the review coincided with the Covid 19 pandemic, the triggers for the review and the changes proposed as a result are not only related to the pandemic.
The first and primary driver was changes within the Anglican Communion which support a re-focussing of work undertaken by staff of the ACC towards support for the Instruments of Communion and those areas of work which cannot be undertaken more effectively through provinces, regions or other agencies.
This re-focussing recognises that:
The impact of the financial uncertainties across the Communion as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic on future Member Church Donations, and the failure to agree a refreshed mechanism for calculating member contribution levels was an important but secondary driver for the changes proposed. The lack of security of Member Church donations is a threat to the sustainability of the present patterns of working.
This document is an excerpt of a paper presented to
ACC staff on 12 January 2021 as part of a consultation.