The Representative Body of the Church in Wales is a

registered charity A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definition of a ch ...

, regulated by the

Charity Commission for England and Wales , type = Non-ministerial government department , seal = , seal_caption = , logo = Charity Commission for England and Wales logo.svg , logo_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , d ...

, responsible for holding property and assets on behalf of the

Church in Wales The Church in Wales ( cy, Yr Eglwys yng Nghymru) is an Anglicanism, Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses. The Archbishop of Wales does not have a fixed archiepiscopal see, but serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishop ...

. It was set up in 1917 to oversee the financial arrangements of the new province of the

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other ...

when the Church in Wales split off from the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

in 1920.

History

The Church in Wales was created in 1920 under the

Welsh Church Act 1914 The Welsh Church Act 1914 is an Act of Parliament under which the Church of England was separated and disestablished in Wales and Monmouthshire, leading to the creation of the Church in Wales. The Act had long been demanded by the Nonconformist ...

. It is not only a disestablished church but was also disendowed at that time, although it was permitted to retain any post-1662 endowments. The Representative Body had been set up in 1917, so that it could hold the church property and any remaining endowments in trust for the clergy and laity. It was also tasked with the administration of the finances of the church and the pension fund. There was an urgent need for more sources of income and an appeal in 1935 to church members raised £750,000, with a further £600,000 being raised in the 1950s. This enabled the Representative Body to subsidise diocesan funds by up to 70%, but by 2011, income had lagged expenditure, and the subsidy had reduced to 30% of the diocesan costs.

The Representative Body

The Representative Body of the

is the central administrative body of the Church in Wales. Its primary function is to manage the Church's financial assets but it also provides centralised support services to the bishops, archdeacons, clergy and lay staff employed by the Church. These services include financial, property, human resources, ICT services and legal support. Its somewhat misleading title - unlike the

Governing Body A governing body is a group of people that has the authority to exercise governance over an organization or political entity. The most formal is a government, a body whose sole responsibility and authority is to make binding decisions in a taken ...

, it is not a representative decision-making body - is derived from the fact that under the

the bishops, clergy and laity were required to set up a body to "represent" them, and then to hold property which was transferred to them by the

Welsh Church Commissioners The Welsh Church Commissioners (whose full official title was "The Commissioners for Church Temporalities in Wales") were set up by the Welsh Church Act 1914 to deal with the disendowment of the Church of England in Wales, as part of its disestablis ...

Structure

Membership of the Representative Body includes the chairman of the

Diocesan Board of Finance A Diocesan Board of Finance, often abbreviated to DBF, is an institution of the Church of England which owns land and controls a number of financial matters in each of the Church's dioceses. Such Boards have existed in every diocese of the Church s ...

of each of the member dioceses, the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Governing Body, the Archbishop of Wales, one cleric and one lay person elected by the Diocesan Conference of each diocese, up to four members nominated by the Bench of Bishops and up to two co-opted members. Clerical members need to hold or have held an ecclesiastical office in the Church in Wales or a licence from a Welsh Diocesan Bishop. Lay members need to be between the ages of eighteen and seventy-five. The Representative Body normally meets three times a year. Membership is for a three-year term and members are also expected to sit on one of the subcommittees, which meet two to four times per year.

Media

The Representative Body found itself to be the centre of media attention in Spring 2017 when it announced the moving of its headquarters from

Cathedral Road, Cardiff Cathedral Road () is one of the major roads of western Cardiff, Wales, passing through the suburb of Pontcanna. It forms part of the A4119 road from Cardiff Bay to Tonypandy and houses which are not lived in have been converted to profession ...

, to

Callaghan Square Callaghan Square ( cy, Sgwâr Callaghan) is a large public plaza in Cardiff, Wales, previously known as Bute Square. It was developed as part of a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scheme to link central Cardiff with Cardiff Bay. History Card ...

. Some churchpeople felt the move was quite an expense, while the Representative Body maintained its current buildings were unfit for purpose and a move was necessary."Church in Wales to move HQ to one of most expensive developments in Cardiff"
Wales Online (Accessed 19 May 2017) The move went ahead in September 2017.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Exempt charities Charities based in Wales Church in Wales