Electoral College update

A note to the diocese from the Llandaff Electors

The Llandaff electors have now reached the point of deciding on our shortlist of nominations, based on the needs of the diocese at this time as described in the profile. There remains the task of holding some meetings with these candidates, in order to enable us to ask questions of them, and then rank them in order of our preference. After that, the outcome of the process will depend on the will of the 45 members of the College, as guided by the Holy Spirit.

Electoral College takes place Wednesday 18 - Friday 20th January. The College is preceded by a celebration of the Eucharist at which the Archbishop will preside, beginning at 10am in Llandaff Cathedral. Everyone is invited to attend, and it would be a powerful demonstration of the prayer in which the process is being held if there were a good attendance from the diocese.

Our prayer and hope is that by the end of Friday 20th (or before) the locked doors of the Cathedral will be opened and an announcement made.

Please pray for such an outcome.

The members of the Electoral College of the Church in Wales who will represent the Llandaff Diocese are:

Lay members:

Mr Michael Lawley

Dr. Heather Payne

Mr Luca Alexander Sparey

Mrs Julia Plaut

Mrs Moira Randall MBE

Mrs Susan Rivers

Clergy members:

Revd Canon Mark Preece

Archdeacon The Ven. Michael Komor

Revd Canon Jan Gould

Revd Zöe King

Revd Canon Edwin Counsell

Revd Peter Lewis

Living God,

You call us to share your life

and to share Your love,

as shown us through Jesus your Son.

At this time of transition for our diocese

we pray for the guidance of your Holy Spirit,

for all who will bear the responsibility

of electing a new bishop.

Through prayer,

and a trusting heart in Your purposes for Your Church

may they recognise the person that you call to be our next bishop,

as we continue to tell a joyful story,

to grow your kingdom,

and to build our capacity for good.

We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

The Electoral College will begin on Wednesday 18 January and follows the retirement of June Osborne who served as Bishop of Llandaff since 2017. The new bishop will be the 73rd Bishop of Llandaff, a diocese which serves nearly half the population of Wales as it includes most of Cardiff, the South Wales Valleys and the Vale of Glamorgan.

The Electoral College is made up of representatives from all six Welsh dioceses, including the Bishops. Its discussions are confidential. Candidates for election are nominated at the meeting, discussed and voted on by ballot. Any candidate receiving two-thirds of the votes of those present is declared Bishop-Elect. Otherwise, the College returns to the nomination stage and the cycle starts afresh. Once a decision is made, the Cathedral re-opens and an announcement made at the west door.

The College may meet for up to three consecutive days in order to reach a decision. If it is unable to do so within this deadline the decision passes to the Bench of Bishops.

Once a bishop is elected, she or he will have up to 28 days to accept the position. If they accept, the election will be formally confirmed at a Sacred Synod service held shortly afterwards.

Episcopacy and the Church in Wales

The Bishops of the Church in Wales share responsibility for the Church’s mission in Wales. This is a time of renewed focus on evangelism and church growth, resourced by prayer and a substantial release of new funding. We seek to share the good news of the Gospel in word and action across the whole of Wales. Our vision is of a church for the 2030s which is healthy, engaged and renewed. As bishops, we work collaboratively, balancing the distinctive identities of our dioceses with a commitment to national priorities and national team so that we are speak as one Church in Wales to Welsh Government and wider society.

The Bench of Bishops

The Bench of Bishops consists of the six diocesan bishops. It is our practice to invite any stipendiary assistant bishops in the province to be present at our meetings and play a full part in the life and work of the Bench.

Our current practice is to meet in person each month apart from August. Seven of these meetings are one day gatherings (with dinner together the evening before). Four times a year we have three-day gathering to confer on matters of common concern. The monthly meetings are focused on transacting business. The three-day gatherings are for spiritual refreshment, relationship building, vision setting, and strategy development. The Archbishop of Wales leads meetings of the Bench and a member of staff from the national team is present to provide secretariat support. The bishops are joined at most of their meetings by the Provincial Secretary (who is also Chief Executive of the Representative Body). The Bench works closely with senior staff of the Representative Body, members of staff whose role it is to support the bishops with their portfolio responsibilities together with the Principal of the St Padarn’s Institute. The bishops are understood collectively to provide leadership for the whole church. The bishops spend time studying together and praying so that ministry is shared within an understanding of the life and call of Christ in our lives.

Portfolio responsibilities

Our work of leading the Church in its mission and ministry is expressed in several ways but critically through key portfolio responsibilities which each of us hold on behalf of the Bench of Bishops. It is the Bench’s practice to review portfolio allocation at its first meeting after a new bishop is elected.

Each of the bishops assumes responsibility for leading the Church in specific areas of mission and ministry such as evangelism, church growth, pioneer ministry development, faith, order and unity, training and formation, ministerial development and education through our Church in Wales Schools. These areas of work are supported by Representative Body staff, and all receive appropriate funding for programmes agreed in advance as part of the annual budget setting process. These responsibilities allow the bishops to be creative and missional, setting new and innovative directions for the Church, working closely with the Governing Body and its Standing Committee to endorse these lines of engagement. It is essential that the new Bishop of Llandaff works closely with colleagues and the national team to bring energy and focus to this part of episcopal work.

Belief and Worship

The diocesan bishops are responsible for introducing legislation into the Governing Body which affects our authorised worship or doctrine. In this way they express their responsibility as guardians of the Church’s worship and faith and their shared focus for unity.

A Common Vision and Purpose

Under the leadership of the Archbishop, the Bench is working to develop a united vision for the future of the Church in Wales, with shared goals and ambitions. All bishops are members of the Governing Body and its Standing Committee. Recently, different gatherings within the Church have made it possible for us to consider how common threads are emerging in order to craft stronger connections between the dioceses and to focus our resources. The next Bishop of Llandaff will need to embrace this emerging and deepening desire to minister as one Church in Wales working increasingly closer together.

National Structure and Bishops’ Involvement

The main structural bodies of the Church in Wales at a national level are the Governing Body and its Standing Committee, the Representative Body, and the Bench of Bishops. Each of these bodies has several sub-committees which undertake specific, specialised work on their behalf.

The Governing Body and Standing Committee

The Governing Body is responsible for decisions that affect the Church in Wales’s faith, order, and worship; it also sets regulations for the general management of the Church in Wales. The Governing Body also receives reports from various groups and bodies within the Church in Wales as well as external organisations with which the Church in Wales has relations or involvement. All the diocesan bishops are ex officio members of both the Governing Body and its Standing Committee. The Standing Committee is, in effect, the executive committee of the Governing Body. It has certain powers conferred to it by both the Constitution of the Church in Wales and the Governing Body. The role of the Standing Committee in the strategic life of the Church in Wales is something which is expanding and recently it has begun meeting jointly with the Representative Body and the Bench of Bishops periodically to provide a forum for structured strategic discussions. The Governing Body meets twice per year for, usually, a two-day residential meeting; the Standing committee usually meets six times per year.

The Representative Body

The Representative Body is the corporate body that holds the financial assets of the Church in Wales. It is a registered charity, and the members of the Representative Body are trustees with trustee responsibility for the oversight of the charity in line with charity legislation and the regulations of the Charity Commission. The Representative Body is responsible for stewarding a substantial investment portfolio; the Clergy Pension Scheme; holding the legal

Vacancy in the See of Llandaff

title to the Church in Wales’s church buildings, parsonage houses and church halls, as well as other land and buildings. The Representative Body prepares an annual budget for national activities and provides structural funding to the six dioceses. The Representative Body acts as the employer of staff operating at a national level. The Representative Body ordinarily meets three times per year but not all the bishops are members: the Archbishop of Wales is an ex-officio member, as is the Chair of the Standing Committee.

St. Padarn’s Institute

St. Padarn’s Institute is an integral part of the Church in Wales providing the Church’s ministerial training, formation, and development. This includes the training of ordinands preparing for ministry; ongoing ministerial development for those at all stages of ministry; equipping and developing lay ministers for a range of ministries throughout Wales; and providing opportunities for disciples to be nurtured whether through offering courses or the provision of resource materials. St. Padarn’s also offers several specialist training courses and a range of post-graduate courses. Strategic oversight of St. Padarn’s is provided by the Bench of Bishops. St. Padarn’s reports to the Representative Body on matters of budget, staffing, its statutory responsibilities, and legal and contractual commitments. St. Padarn’s has a team of over 30 staff across a range of support, operational and academic roles. The bishops, both collectively as a Bench and individually, have close relationships with St. Padarn’s staff via their national strategic role in St. Padarn’s operation and in setting the training needs within their own dioceses.

Church in Wales National Office

Operational and administrative support for the work of the Governing Body, the Representative Body and the Bench of Bishops is undertaken by staff based at the national office in Cardiff. Around 50 staff make up the national team, many of whom the bishops meet and interact with regularly. Some members of the national team have operational responsibility for work relating to the bishops’ portfolios; others have senior specialist responsibility for areas of work which include legal and constitutional matters, finance, people services, property, safeguarding, ICT, and governance support services.

Balance between national and diocesan responsibilities

As bishops, we keep in balance our responsibilities within our dioceses and our responsibilities to lead with and care for each other. We find that, on average, our commitments to leading in our areas of portfolio responsibility and our engagement with national responsibilities take up a quarter of our time.