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need have no particular qualification, and, apparently, carries no
legal responsibility. Annually the Parochial Church Council must
present to the Church meeting:
(1) "Audited accounts for the year ending on December 31st
immediately preceeding the meeting; and
(2) an audited statement of the funds and property, if any,
remaining in the hands of the council at that date"
(B26)
.
There is no requirement for a balance sheet per se, nor any stipu-
lation as to format for the accounts, not even as to the difference
between 'Receipts and Payments' and 'Income and Expenditure'
(C5)
, and
"one.. .very frequently finds the terms..being used synonymously".
(B26)
.
The result is a veritable salmagundi of differing practices, not helped
by the legal requirement that specific bequests must be applied to stated
purposes and that therefore a distinction must be kept between at least
their nominal sums (although the capital from several bequests can be
consolidated before being invested)
(C4)
. It may have been a degree of
exasperation with such variety that led one commentator to state "the
whole of the Church's finances owes more to Byzantium than to either
Rome or Harvard"
(P6)
and a banker to mention "one church treasurer who
compared his accounting system to the peace of God, saying 'It "passeth
all understanding"!'"
(P8)
.
One reason for such poor accounting standards has been clearly
identified by Wyn: "The reason for lack of direction in the Parochial
Church Council is mainly to be found in the absence of good businessmen
elected to serve as members"
(B27)
(a point we shall find corroborated when
we come to consider the case of Bradford St. Swithin's) and he goes on
to add "... priests are popular with people but unfamiliar with figures,
and this situation suggests that most clergy could greatly benefit from
instruction in commercial practice"
(B27)
. No doubt they could, but it
