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  A PAGE ON WHAT THE WEBSITES SHOWED

UK Dioceses' financial transparency & accountability 2021. 

 

Good, but easily improved.

(And what's been lost to view in three?)

   
     

"People have the right to know how we spend the money that is given to us."
 Jesuit Father Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, Prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy, Vatican News June 25 2021

Seen on the Financial Accountability page of Voice of the Faithful website introducing their fifth annual report on Measuring and Ranking Diocesan Financial Transparency in all 177 dioceses in the USA

http://votf.org/node/1587

 

 

 

 

"Perhaps there’s a case for the UK to organise an OFTRED – an Office of Transparency Readiness – which could arrange inspectors to assess parish financial transparency using just information visible on their websites.  They might issue annual ratings of Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, or Inadequate.  The inspectors?  Perhaps school councils – or staff - in the diocese?"

In Part 1 of the OpenBooks Report

 

Financial transparency in the UK is guaranteed.

 

But the OpenBooks Surveys showed some under-used opportunities.

 

However, there's evidence that some dioceses are less transparent when they update their websites - on statistics, and acknoweldgement of Canon 1287.2

 

There's no ackenldegemt of how they check on compliance;

 

In the USA, Voice of the Faithful continue to find that dioceses do not display their annual accounts.

 

So OpenBooks Surveys could look at the annual accounts, summary data on the charoty regulator, as posted on diocesean webistes.  There is also the details of finance council members, and

 

So the search was to see whether it was easy to find

  • Does the diocesan website show the annual accounts or report? 

  • Does it show finance council names - and details of their qualifications ynder Cnon

  • Does it show documented relating to norms for Canon 1287.2?

  • What else is on show?

  • Do these stack up up?

  
 

 

“Financial transparency increases the quality of the relationship between pastors and the laity in the Church, thus advancing co-responsibility… Financial councils in dioceses and parishes are not in place mainly for controlling but for assuring good planning…”
In: What kind of transparency for the Church? Proposing operational transparency for processes, solutions and decisions in the Catholic Church by Fr Cristian Mendoza Ovando, Church, Communication and Culture  www.tandfonline.com/toc/rchu20/5/2

“But if a diocese is going to ask more people to give more, with that comes responsibility for accountability and transparency”.   

Cardinal (then Archbishop) Vincent Nichols speaking to priests in Westminster Archdiocese, reported in The Tablet in 2010.

Financial transparency matters on Episcopal Conference Websites

A handful of Conferences provide a documented public view on Canon 1287.2, usually affirming the obligation on the parish priest. These include Portugal, Italy, and Belarus.


Financial transparency matters on Diocesan Websites

Transparency in the UK is guaranteed by Charity Law.

 

All UK dioceses have an active website – and a Wikipedia entry.

Not all post up-to-date or easily-found Annual Reports on-line – so the better source is the charity regulators’ websites, which have several years’ reports.  These are the guarantee of financial transparency at diocesan level.

Most websites contain the names of Finance Councils and Trustees, but usually without any information on their qualifications or the appointment process.

Norms for Canon 1287.2 were found in on-line documents for about a quarter of dioceses, usually in parish operating procedures. Canon 1287.2 reporting on finances was assigned variously to parish priests, their finance committee, ‘the parish’, and no-one in particular.  It was always framed as a duty to inform – not as a right of the faithful to be kept informed. Part 2 has more details.

In three dioceses, publication of parish accounts was a must for Trustees.

One UK diocese posted accounts for each parish.  In New Zealand, parishes are registered charities, with finances and other details on the regulator’s website.

Gift Aid notification policies varied – some dioceses seeing letters as a must.

Data on Mass attendance at parish level was seen on only two websites.  Both showed examples of big year-on-year variations in the numbers returned.

Despite the pandemic, annual reports seem to have been submitted on time.

There was no sign that C1287.2 was suspended or special arrangements.

  
 

 
 

 
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