We are looking for someone to join our Church Buildings and Pastoral Reorganisation team as a Closed Churches Officer, to assist in settling the future of church buildings which are no longer required for regular public worship.

Hours: 35 per week (full-time)

Salary: £30,581 - £36,513

The Closed Churches Officer will support the identification of suitable new uses for these special buildings, many of which are significant heritage assets, working alongside internal and external colleagues and stakeholders. The Closed Churches Officer will seek to ensure that new uses are commensurate with the buildings’ significance and that proposals are in sympathy with the local context, whilst being aware of pastoral sensitivities and ensuring compliance with relevant legislation. During the use-seeking period, the Closed Churches Officer will ensure the appropriate care and security of church buildings, managing their regular maintenance and repair.

They will have the opportunity to bring their knowledge of historic buildings to support colleagues in making appropriate recommendations for the long-term future of a unique building stock, respecting their past as places of worship and helping to ensure that they find a sustainable use.

The Closed Churches Officer will play a key role in ensuring that the pastoral impact of church closures is sensitively managed, working so that closure and effective re-use contributes positively to the reorganisation of diocesan resources whilst achieving good outcomes for heritage assets. Essential in this will be active communication and engagement within local communities and across the diocese, as well as with non-church bodies such as local planning authorities and national heritage bodies.

The successful candidate must be a qualified and experienced historic buildings professional. They will be a self-motivated but collaborative team player who has a creative approach to solving problems. They will be skilled at working with stakeholders with varying concerns and interests.

An attractive package includes a competitive salary, flexi-time scheme, reimbursement of car and travelling expenses, an 8% non-contributory pension with an additional 5% matched contributions, hybrid working (50%), and 25 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays and four customary days a year (between Christmas and New Year).

Closing Date for Applications: 29 March 2023

Candidates to be notified of shortlisting outcome: w/c 3rd April 2023

For an informal discussion about the role, please contact the Team Leader, Lisa McIntyre (lisa.mcintyre@leeds.anglican.org)

Leeds Diocesan Board of Finance (The Board) is committed to providing equal opportunities in employment and the workplace and in avoiding unlawful discrimination. Accordingly, the Board will ensure that recruitment and selection, training and development, and promotion procedures result in no job applicant or employee receiving less favourable treatment on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, class or caste, religious belief or lack of religious belief (unless this is an occupational requirement), disability, trade union membership or non-membership, gender or sex, sexual orientation, marital status, age, responsibility for dependents or being a part-time or fixed-term worker. The Board’s objective is to ensure that individuals are selected, promoted and otherwise treated solely on the basis of their relevant aptitudes, skills and abilities.

For clergy applying to this role, your Area/Suffragan Bishop must be informed of your applications at the earliest opportunity. Furthermore, you must seek a Diocesan Bishop’s Licence in order to be eligible for a new role, and please be aware that granting a licence is subject to a CCSL from your Area/Suffragan Bishop.

To download a copy of our policy for the recruitment of ex-offenders from the diocesan website, please click on the below link:

https://www.leeds.anglican.org/vacancies

For full details, please see the attached job description.

For full details, please see the attached person specification.

The Diocese of Leeds came into existence at Easter 2014 following the dissolution of the former dioceses of Bradford, Ripon & Leeds, and Wakefield. It covers the whole of West Yorkshire, the western part of North Yorkshire, and small parts of South Yorkshire, Lancashire, and County Durham. The diocese has 656 church buildings.

The Church Buildings and Pastoral Reorganisation Team works with the Church Revitalisation Team and brings together the statutory functions of the Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches and the Diocesan Missional and Pastoral Committee.

Each diocese is required to have a Mission and Pastoral Committee, to deal with matters of pastoral reorganisation, including the closure of church buildings. This work is a statutory process governed by the Mission and Pastoral Measure 2011. Church of England Measures have the same force in law as Acts of Parliament. In the Diocese of Leeds, the work of the Committee is delegated to Area Mission and Pastoral Committees and to the Closed Churches Task Group. Pastoral reorganisation can be driven by a number of things but one of the key factors is making appropriate use of available ministry resources in relation to Mission and Pastoral needs. The mission emphasis has come to the fore in recent legislation. The Mission and Pastoral Measure 2011 (as amended 2018), Part 1 Section 1, states that “it shall be the duty ofany person or body carrying out the functions under this measure … to have due regard tothe furtherance of the mission of the Church of England”.

Where a decision is made to close a church building, the building is transferred to the ownership of the Diocesan Board of Finance, which is responsible for its care and maintenance, insurance, and safekeeping of the contents until the building’s future is settled. During this period, the Diocesan Mission and Pastoral Committee will act in partnership with the Church Commissioners to find an appropriate new use.

Our Values

The Diocesan values, Loving, Living, Learning, are vital to the way we encourage equality, diversity and inclusion in our workplace. We aim to:

• Love God, the world and one another.
• Live in the world as it is, but, drawn by a vision of something better, we want to help individuals and communities flourish,
• Learn when we get things wrong, by listening and growing together.

The Diocese of Leeds is proud to be a Living Wage Employer.