Terms of reference

• To examine the present responsibilities of the see of Canterbury;
• To reflect upon the continuing growth and evolution of the Office and role of Archbishop;
• To consider possible future developments;
• To make recommendations in the light of these considerations concerning the Office and its resources in order to ensure that it may continue to be discharged effectively.

Summary of recommendations

Diocese of Canterbury

1. Legislation should provide that the ordinary diocesan duties be devolved permanently on to a Bishop in Canterbury so styled. We understand that this may be effected by taking a fresh power by Measure to make Orders prescribing appropriate schemes, such Orders to be subject to negative procedure, and reviewable in the sense that they would be capable of being remade;
2. We recommend that it should remain for the Archbishop alone to send names to the Crown for appointment as Bishop of Dover. However, in recognition of the de facto diocesan role of the Bishop of Dover, we recommend further that a tailored procedure should be developed for this task. In that respect, we agree with the thrust of the proposals of the Perry Committee that so far as possible the procedure should in principle draw on Crown Appointment Commission practices or the successor procedures recommended by that Committee.* In essence, we envisage that the Archbishop should consult widely in order to produce a statement of local requirement , a list of personal and professional qualities, and suggestions of possible candidates. We think that in the case of the Bishop of Dover the Archbishop should consult and involve both the vacancy in see committee and experienced members of the Crown Appointments Commission (or its successor) for these purposes;
3. The Bishop of Dover as well as the Archbishop should by law have an assigned place - reflected appropriately also in the customary processions in the cathedral - for his cathedra in Canterbury Cathedral, if possible opposite that of the Archbishop himself;
4. The Archbishop should retain a residence in Canterbury (probably in part of the Old Palace), and retain normal episcopal rights to preach in the Cathedral, for example at Christmas and Easter, consecrate his suffragans, install senior clergy, ordain perhaps once a year, and, in consultation with the Bishop of Dover and with the latter's support, express his continuing interest in and support for the life of the diocese in such ways as are compatible with maintaining the integrity of the delegation.

Metropolitan for the Southern Province

1. While the boundaries between the two English Provinces should be kept under review, there should at this stage be no programme of largescale adjustment, nor should a third archbishopric be created;
2. While there should be no formal delegated arrangements for episcopal pastoral care in the Southern Province, every encouragement should be given to the emergence of informal groupings and other arrangements for this purpose; and
3. The Archbishop should consider instituting an immediate review of the administrative functions linked with the Metropolitical and related roles. The review's brief should be - with the clear intention of removing obligations on the Archbishop - to identify their extent and practical incidence, and recommend what changes of practice and law should be made to facilitate their further delegation.

Primate of All England

1. The Archbishop of Canterbury should conduct a strategic distancing from the current degree of his day-to-day involvement in the detailed administrative affairs or management of the Church of England in England;
2. So far as practicable, senior bishops should more formally than now be allocated policy portfolios as spokesmen for the Church of England as well as other delegated duties, and both Archbishops hold themselves in principle in reserve to intervene only when there is some clear necessity for their personal involvement;
3. There should be a conscious policy to develop the role of the Archbishop of York in the overall governance of the Church of England in England, this to be accompanied by such changes in staff support at Bishopthorpe and in the episcopal management of the diocese of York as may be necessary;
4. The Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, and possibly other senior bishops, should take on a greater share of representative attendance at State events.

Anglican Communion

1. We believe that leadership of the Anglican Communion will remain one of the principal modern roles of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is not an optional function but one that has emerged from the dispersion and growth of churches abroad in communion with the Church of England, and their current needs and contributions on the world stage. Because they require him to do what only he can do, there are considerable limits on his ability to delegate these roles, and in practice they are going to remain - and almost certainly continue to grow - in the foreseeable future;
2. From this fact flow inevitable consequences for the Archbishop's other roles in England, and this consideration must powerfully reinforce the case for the recommendations in respect of them that we have already made;
3. Nonetheless, the Anglican Communion should be encouraged to do more to throw up its own forms of subsidiary leadership both at regional level and the Anglican Communion Office;
4. Steps should be taken to establish a post at episcopal level at Lambeth funded by the Anglican Communion to act as the Archbishop of Canterbury's right hand in Anglican Communion affairs, with a view to its holder deputising wherever practicable for the Archbishop in the Anglican Communion, and helping to coordinate support with the Anglican Communion Office. The post holder should come from the Anglican Communion overseas, and be selected by the Archbishop in consultation with the Anglican Consultative Council and Primates;
5. There should be renewed attempts to improve the financial position of the Anglican Communion Office so that it may be equipped to discharge the expectations being placed upon it. One of the parallel objects should be to reduce the dependence of the Anglican Communion on what is in fact a subsidy from the English Church Commissioners;
6. Consideration should, therefore, be given to strengthening the fund raising professionalism of the Anglican Communion Office by means of appointing a funded development officer who will also relieve so far as possible the fund raising burdens at present resting on the Archbishop of Canterbury;
7. The demands now placed upon the Archbishop for visits to Provinces are extensive and should be managed by means of a more controlled regime. Visits should form part of a thought-through strategy for the evaluation of the worth of all visits. Apart from exceptional circumstances, the aim should be to have no more than two formal tours a year of, where this is feasible, no more than a week's length. The programmes should be decided by the Archbishop after consultation involving his advisers with the Province on its proposals. Last minute changes should be kept to a minimum;
8. The Primates should be invited to review the question of the Archbishop of York's membership of the Primates' Meeting.

Ecumenical role

1. The Archbishop should retain his Joint Presidential role in the case of Churches Together in England, but should feel free to delegate the maintenance of relations with other religious groupings to designated English bishops, in cooperation so far as it may be practicable with colleague members of the Anglican Communion. This will need to be a flexible strategy depending on the gifts and availability of particular bishops. However, it may over time be possible to expect particular diocesan posts to develop continuing responsibilities just as a number of dioceses (for example, Salisbury with the Sudan) have forged continuing links with other Anglican Communion Provinces;
2. Designated staff should be retained in both Lambeth and Church House, but their respective portfolios should be kept under review. Broadly, the Secretary for Ecumenical Affairs should concentrate solely on those matters which require the Archbishop's involvement because only he can address the issues concerned, including maintaining personal relations with other religious leaders. In principle, all other matters should be handled in Church House so far as possible with the staff there acting in support of the Archbishop.

Interfaith role

1. The Archbishop should retain a capacity at Lambeth to express and further his personal sponsorship of interfaith relations, but he should be sparing in extending his personal involvement when new initiatives such as the World Bank initiative have developed beyond successful launch;
2. In so far as interfaith activity increases, the involvement of other bishops and the Anglican Communion should be considered on the same principles as should be applied in the case of ecumenical relations.

Organisation of support at Lambeth Palace

1. The work of the Lambeth Palace staff should in future be coordinated by a chief of staff with authority to ensure that policy preparation is fully coordinated within the Palace and between the Palace and the National Church Institutions, the Anglican Communion Office and Bishopthorpe;
2. To that end, the chief of staff should establish more collective working methods (e.g. the weekly senior staff meeting, chaired perhaps monthly by the Archbishop) where policy work is debated and co-ordinated. The objective should be clarity in long-term planning and clear and effective lines of executive responsibility;
3. The chief of staff should be responsible for overall staff and resource management at Lambeth Palace, for the oversight of remaining Metropolitical business and be directly responsible to the Archbishop for the management of the Archbishop's diary;
4. The occupant of the post should be a person (probably lay) with considerable private or public sector management experience, a track record of achievement, and high intelligence and energy. It follows that that person should be paid at a commensurate level;
5. The size and deployment of the Lambeth staff should, bearing in mind its special functions, and subject to any conclusions of Professor Mellows and his colleagues, be managed with respect to the same principles that are applied to staff in the National Church Institutions generally;
6. It should be a policy goal to delegate tasks from Lambeth to elsewhere unless their discharge requires the personal attention of the Archbishop, or has particular and immediate implications for his office;
7. The Archbishop should continue to be housed in Lambeth Palace;
8. There should be a carefully constructed and authoritative planning team (probably run by the Secretary General to the Archbishops' Council or, when in post, the new style Lambeth chief of staff) set up immediately when an incumbent Archbishop decides to retire - in order to prepare for announcing that decision and be responsible for assisting at all the following stages, and in particular with the induction (though not, of course, the appointment) of his successor with the object of preparing the latter for the work before him and to permit him to make informed choices about how he will address his ministry.

Memebers of the review

Rt Hon Lord Hurd of Westwell CH CBE, Chairman
Chief Emeka Anyaoku TC GCVO CON
Rt Hon. the Lord Fellowes GCB GCVO QSO
Mr Ewan Harper CBE
Mr David Lammy MP
Lady Mayhew of Twysden OBE
Dr Eunice Okorocha
Rt Revd Dr Keith Rayner AO

Secretariat:

Mr R. M. Morris CVO
Miss Georgina Seward