FACED with a reduction in full-time paid clergymen available in 1980, a Church of England blueprint for staffing the diocese of London plans for 20 per cent less manpower in that year compared with 1975.
Recognition that London
must act responsibly if it is not to draw on manpower resources at the expense of other dioceses is the reaction of London north of the river to the working group of the General Synod which produced what is familiarly known as the Sheffield Report, as it was presided over Ess Bishop Gordon Fallow
of Sheffield.
The report, which will soon be presented to the Diocesan Synod, allows for an establishment of 633 posts in 1980; this included a pool of 29 to provide what is referred to as "extra resources".
London's "homework" on
reorganisation of manpower policy was entrusted to a diocesan pastoral subcommittee under the chairmanship of the Archdeacon of Hampstead, the Von F. Pickering, with membership drawn from area committees serving each of the archdeaconries. The report deals with staffing at every level, from the diocesan and area bishops to parochial clergymen, those engaged in specialist ministries, industrial and university chaplaincies and administration (where it states that laymen should assume tasks hitherto undertaken by clergymen un
less it can be shown that a man in orders is necessary for the proper fulfilment of the task envisaged).
St Paul's Cathedral is also included, hut the report makes it clear that consultations with the Greater Chapter are continuing.