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An incumbent's stipend originates from three sources: the
Church Commissioners, his diocese, and his parish.
The Church Commissioners now hold the whole of the capital of
the bequests made at any time in any parish for the support of the
clergy, and whilst all those bequests are consolidated into one
investment portfolio, accounts are kept showing for each parish in
the country the nominal amount of capital bequested thereto. On that
nominal amount the commissioners calculate 4¼% interest and place the
resultant sum ('guaranteed annuity') to the incumbent's credit. The
excess of the portfolio income over 4¼% is then divided by the total
number of clergymen in the country and this per capita value
re-multiplied by the number of clergy in each diocese and credited
to that diocese's 'augmentation fund'. This fund, although kept by
the Church Commissioners, is effectively controlled by each diocesan
board of finance who may allocate their total sum among their own
diocesan clergy as they see fit. There seems though to be a general
trend for it to be used chiefly as an equalising instrument - those
incumbents receiving a high endowment income receiving a relatively
low sum from the diocesan augmentation fund, and vice versa - with a
'working balance' being kept aside and used to smooth out the
anomalies which occasionally occur.
The second source is the further supplementation to their
respective augmentation funds made directly by each diocese (in the
case of Bradford, by levy on the parishes). This further sum is
controlled both as to amount and as to allocation by the diocese,
but remitted by them to the commissioners in London, as it is the
commissioners, not the diocese, who make the monthly payment to each
clergyman. The amount of this further supplementation necessarily
varies from diocese to diocese, since diocesan resourcefulness varies,
and the problem of raising it to a level sufficient to ensure an
