Church Commissioners

It was established in 1948 and combined the assets of Queen Anne's Bounty, a fund dating from 1704 for the relief of poor clergy, and of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners formed in 1836.

An earlier Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Commission had been set up under the first brief administration of Sir Robert Peel in 1835 with a wide remit, "to consider the State of the Established Church in England and Wales, with reference to Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues" (Minutes of the Commission, 9 February 1835); this body redistributed wealth between the dioceses and changed diocesan boundaries, and the permanent Ecclesiastical Commission was formed the following year.

[1][2] In 1992 it was revealed that the Church Commissioners had lost £500m through over-commitment of the fund leading to poor investment decisions.

[6] In June 2022, the Commissioners acknowledged early links of Queen Anne's Bounty to the Atlantic slave trade.

[2] In January 2023 the Commissioners announced that they were setting up a fund of £100 million to be spent over the next nine years on addressing historic links with slavery.

[12] The Church Commissioners have the following responsibilities:[13] The CC portfolio in 2020 is extensive, worth around £9.2 billion[16] and includes the Hyde Park Estate and a 10% stake in the MetroCentre shopping centre.

[18] There are 33 Church Commissioners, of whom 27 make up the board of governors as the main policy-making body, with a further 6 who are officers of state or Government ministers.

Board members are either elected by the General Synod of the Church of England, or appointed by either the archbishops or the Crown.