Help Identify Individual Needs and Emerging Trends

5. Conclusions and Recommendations

Within our changing context and with our potentially changing terms of service we face both profound challenges and real opportunities to address them in creative and fruitful ways.

The move to more collaborative and complex patterns of licensed ministry is potentially accompanied by a means to support that ministry in the form of our new terms of service, i.e. our developing arrangements for MDR and CMD.

In their shift away from budgeting on the basis of historical spending and developing aligned ministry and mission plans, many dioceses are making the most of the opportunities available. They are recognising the increasing importance and potential of MDR to:  help identify individual needs and emerging trends  monitor progress towards development goals  record learning and development Through the growth of ‘leadership development programmes’ and the use of less formal learning and development techniques they are also raising the quality of provision and fermenting an appetite for broader change.

Experience across dioceses illustrates that it is possible to provide good quality MDR and CMD opportunities. It is hoped this report’s recommendations, which echo recommendations previously made to the House, will help us to make these available to all our ministers. We recommend that:

R1. Dioceses should maintain 1% stipend per licensed clergy person per annum as a minimum budget and for this purpose count SSMs as if they were stipendiary.

R2. Dioceses should focus their mandatory provision on key transitions in ministry and make full use of collaborative possibilities in regions to deliver this.

R3. Dioceses should review their arrangements for CMD for all licensed ministers with regard to:

 the nature of present CMD provision to ensure that this is related to ministers’ present and future vocational development in the context of the diocese’s mission priorities.

 the structure of their funding to enhance the accessibility of development opportunities, e.g. should a self-supporting minister receive a greater allocation than a stipendiary one, e.g. to compensate for loss of earnings whilst attending mandatory training or to pay for childcare to enable equality of access? Indeed, if collaborative ministry is a goal, when does learning only become possible with lay participation, and who pays if they’re not licensed ministers?

 their arrangements for developing and delivering CMD provision within the region, with Higher Education partners, and, with the national network of practitioners.

R4. Dioceses should review their arrangements for MDR provision with regard to the Interim Ministerial Development Review Guidance, produced by the CMD Panel, and the consultation days designed to support the training of those involved in conducting reviews, to ensure that they support learning and development. R5. Dioceses should review how all with a responsibility for development are collaborating with a regard to ensuring that knowledge about who may be best placed to support particular learning is shared and that less formal learning is made use of and recognised.

R6. Dioceses should review their overall CMD provision with regard to ensuring that adequate attention is paid to new posts, mid and late- ministry. And, if operating a leadership development programme its role and adequacy to deliver in these areas.

R7. Dioceses should review their particular CMD provision with regard to addressing any weaknesses in the following areas:  Diversity issues  Confidence and competence in the occasional offices  Adult education

R8. Dioceses should review the arrangements they have in place with regard to enabling them to make ‘capable’ appointments, and enhance these if necessary.

R9. Bishop’s staffs should review what arrangements they have in place to communicate with their CMD leads with regard to ensuring that these enable all to be fully conversant with mission and ministry, development and deployment priorities, particularly in the context of MDR.

R10. Dioceses should revisit the Mind the Gap report and review whether they have a ministry development plan that addresses questions of future patterns of ministry and deployment. If they have no plan they should put one in place.

R11. Dioceses ensure that all those in CMD roles have clear role descriptions and when new to post take up offers of induction, mentoring and opportunities to obtain formal qualifications in the field of learning and development.

R.12 Dioceses should review what strategies they have in place to identify and develop individuals who may take on CMD roles in the future.