Staff and Stakeholder Questions and Answers (Q&A) - Version 4: May 2024
This Q&A seeks to answer your questions pertaining to the move of the EDBF office (previously based on Barton Road, Ely), to Etheldreda House on Lancaster Way Business Park, Witchford, Ely (click here to open in Google maps).
If you have any questions on this planned move not met in this Q&A , please direct them to officelocation@elydiocese.org and the team will endeavour to answer them at the earliest opportunity.
We have attempted to order the questions and answers based on their general theme, to help you navigate the areas covered.
The Commonly Asked Questions
Q. Will this cost my parish more in Ministry Share?
A. No. Relocating the offices will be at zero cost to parishes or normal Diocesan running expenses. We plan, with the approval of our auditors, to utilise restricted funds that have accumulated over the years in the Diocesan Pastoral Account (DPA) from property sales, which can only be spent on Diocesan buildings.
Q. Isn’t this money being taken from supplying clergy housing?
A. No. The clergy housing stock is carefully managed and appropriate for our needs. Any additional requirements for clergy housing can and will still be met from the Diocesan Pastoral Account (DPA).
Q. Why can’t all this money for a new office be used for more Vicars?
A. This money is being utilised from the Diocesan Pastoral Account (DPA), which is restricted to being used for the purchase and maintenance of Diocesan buildings.
Q. What will staff do while the new building is being built?
A. All staff have been working from home since March 2020 and this will remain the case for the duration of the new building work. Provision will be made during the building phase to provide office space for those that will require access to an office site. This working space will remain on the footprint of the Bishop Woodford House site and be for the use of EDBF staff only.
Financial Considerations
Q. Will this cost my parish more in Ministry Share?
A. No. Relocating the offices will be at zero cost to Diocesan running expenses. We plan, with the approval of our auditors, to utilise restricted funds that have accumulated over the years in the Diocesan Pastoral Account (DPA) from property sales, which can only be spent on Diocesan buildings.
Q. Why can’t you just update and stay at the Barton Road offices?
A. The Barton Road offices will require significant investment to bring them up to an acceptable standard, both for the staff that use them, and for our parishes that rely on the smooth and efficient functioning of the Diocesan office. The cost of doing this work cannot be met by using funds from the Diocesan Pastoral Account, which is restricted for uses of this nature. Instead, these improvements would otherwise need to be met from releasing other assets or from the Diocesan General Account, directly impacting the cashflow and available funds for the wider Diocese (and thus possible increases to Ministry Share contributions).
Q. Why can’t you use this money to build a new office on the Barton Road site?
A. The land at Barton Road is owned by the Diocese of Ely Religious Educational Trust (DERET), which is a separate registered charity, not by the Ely Diocesan Board of Finance (EDBF). Funds in the Diocesan Pastoral Account (DPA) are part of the EDBF, which is also a registered charity. Charity regulations mean that we are unable to use the funds available for one charity for the benefit of another. Even were this not the case, there would also be significant cost implications of demolishing the existing site in order to start again, which we would not incur by building a new premise on a ‘brownfield’ site, and in doing so obtain an additional long-term asset.
Q. Isn’t this money being taken from supplying clergy housing?
A. No. The clergy housing stock is carefully managed and appropriate for our needs. Any future requirements for clergy housing can still be met from available funds.
Q. Why can’t this money be used to reduce Ministry Share?
A. This money is being used from the Diocesan Pastoral Account, which is restricted to being used for the purchase and maintenance of Diocesan buildings.
Q. Wouldn’t it be better to save the money at this difficult financial time than to spend it?
A. The money used to build a new premises is coming from the Diocesan Pastoral Account which would otherwise not be available to us. Its use to create a new office will allow the Diocese of Ely Religious Education Trust (DERET) to rent the current site at Barton Road bringing in an income for the benefit of religious education across the Diocese of Ely.
Q. Isn’t it better to keep this money in the bank earning interest, than to spend it?
A. This money is coming from the Diocesan Pastoral Account which would otherwise not be available for this purpose, with the interest from this account being negligible. For this reason, its use to create a new office (and in doing so a new asset), represents a better financial proposition than leaving it where it is. This would also allow the Diocese of Ely Religious Educational Trust (DERET) to rent the current site at Barton Road, should they choose to do so, allowing them to generate an an income for the benefit of religious education across the Diocese of Ely.
Q. As the new building gets older and needs work doing, won’t we start losing money on this investment?
A. A new purpose-built premises will require significantly less maintenance over the coming decades than the current site at Barton Road. Inevitably as a building ages, there will be ongoing maintenance costs, but these will certainly be significantly lower than they will be at the current site.
Q. Why can’t the rental income from Bishop Woodford House go toward reducing our parishes Ministry Share?
A. The rental income from the Bishop Woodford House site would need to be allocated in accordance with the purposes of the Diocese of Ely Religious Educational Trust (DERET). This means it has to be allocated to work with schools and other religious educational needs, and not for any other purpose.
Q. Where will the rental income from Bishop Woodford House go?
A. Bishop Woodford House and the grounds on which it sits is owned by the Diocese of Ely Religious Educational Trust (DERET). Income derived from the future rental of the Bishop Woodford House site will be earmarked for contribution to diocesan work with schools and other religious educational purposes as directed by DERET.
Q. Why can’t all this money for a new office be used for more Vicars?
A. This money is coming from the Diocesan Pastoral Account, which is restricted to being used for the purchase and maintenance of Diocesan buildings.
Q. How will you make sure the Diocese get a fair rental price for the current site?
A. Independent experts will be engaged to ensure any contractual agreements and derived rental income from the site will be aligned to market value. Additionally, the current site will be rented on the basis of a full-repairing and insuring lease, meaning that all repairs and insurance costs will be met by the tenant. The rent will also be inflation-linked and there will be options built into any agreement for the Diocese of Ely Religious Educational Trust (DERET), and therefore the Ely Diocesan Board of finance (EDBF) to take back occupancy of the building at pre-agreed points, should they decide to do so.
Q. What makes you think Bishop Woodford House can be rented out if it needs such repair and won’t meet Diocesan needs.
A. What works for our staff and our parishes is not the same as what would work for another organisation. For us, the facilities do not let us support our parishes now and into the future as we would wish or our parishes expect. These may not be concerns for other entities.
Further, we are increasingly mindful about the ongoing costs of maintaining the current site and those costs directly impacting on our parishes, due to less money being available to subsidise a shortfall in Ministry Share. Other commercial entities would take a different view on these costs to their business, in a way we are not able to.
Q. Could the Ely Diocesan Board of Finance (EDBF) move back into Bishop Woodford House in the future?
A. Yes. There will be options built into any rental agreement to end occupancy of the building at pre-agreed points, should the Diocese of Ely Religious Educational Trust (DERET) choose to do so and then re-rent the site to the Ely Diocesan Board of Finance (EDBF).
Q. How have you come up with the costs? And who pays if you overspend?
A. Oversight of the whole project is through a sub-committee of the Finance Committee, formed with this sole purpose. We have engaged independent experts to fully cost the project and every measure will be taken to ensure costs do not escalate beyond the initial project budget. As with all projects of this nature a contingency will be built into the budget. The project is engaging with expert external developers, however, in these uncertain times, there can be no guarantee costs won’t change. In the unlikely event that they do exceed the original budget, at no point will they be met from Ministry Share.
The EDBF staff and working patterns
Q. What will staff do while the new building is being built?
A. All staff have been working from home since March 2020 and this will remain the case for the duration of the new building work. Provision will be made during the building phase to provide office space for those that will require access to an office site. This working space will remain on the footprint of the Bishop Woodford House site, for the use of staff only.
Q. How will I contact a member of staff if they don’t have a fixed office?
A. Diocesan staff are contactable via both email and telephone, regardless of their place of work. Contact details for staff, including the Bishops’ and Archdeacons’ offices, can be found on the "Contact us" section of the Diocesan website by clicking here.
Q. What help will be offered to staff who have moved to be near the current site, and then will have to travel further?
A. All staff have, and will continue to be, fully engaged in the decision to relocate the office. As plans continue, further 1-2-1 discussions will be held to understand and seek to accommodate specific needs.
Q. Will staff be reimbursed for any extra travel costs?
A. Due to the proposed new office being so close to the current site, and there being a long lead-time between notification of the move and the new office opening, as well as the additional working flexibility being offered, it is not envisaged that any extra travel costs will be reimbursed.
Q. Will staff be offered flexible working patterns to help reduce the inconvenience of not being in a city centre location?
A. Yes. The detail of this will be explored more fully, but the Senior Staff are committed to offering a fully flexible working pattern.
The Lancaster Way Business Park and New Office
Q. Will the new building be green?
A. The new office will meet all the latest environmental building standards, making it significantly more environmentally friendly than the current site.
Q. Will the new building be carbon neutral?
A. The final details of the new-build construction are still being explored, and while it may not be possible to build a site that is fully carbon neutral, it is certainly the case that it will be a significant improvement on the current site and with the offer of more flexible staff working, staff commuter mileage will certainly fall, thus further reducing the Ely Diocesan Board of Finances overall carbon footprint.
Q. Will the new building be able to hold large meetings and training sessions?
A. Yes. The new plans will allow for multifunctional meeting spaces, capable of seating in excess of 50 people. The audio-visual offering will also be designed to accommodate broadcast quality feeds in and out of the building, allowing people to ‘virtually’ attend meetings, without having to travel to the site if they choose not to.
Q. Have you looked and learnt about what other Dioceses have done when they have changed offices?
A. The team tasked with the detailed exploration of the new office facilities have engaged and will continue to engage widely both with what we can learn from other diocesan offices, and more broadly with what wider industry sectors can teach us. We have also and will continue to work with internal colleagues, to understand from them what they need in the discharge of their departmental duties.
Q. Will there be adequate parking for staff and visitors at the new building?
A. The number of parking spaces allocated to any new commercial building is governed by planning permissions. We are confident the allocation offered as part of the proposed Lancaster Way Business Park proposal will be fully adequate for our needs, especially when coupled with a mixed-mode of working.
Q. Will there be a prayer space at the new building?
A. Yes. There will be a prayer space in the new premises, likely to be part of a multi-functional room that will also be available for other purposes.
Q. Will there be showers for those that cycle to work?
A. Yes. Staff showers will be available.
Q. Will the new office have the same staff and visitor facilities currently offered by Bishop Woodford House?
A. Yes. The proposed new office will include facilities that will meet the needs of our staff and parishes now and into the future in a way the site at Bishop Woodford house is unable to do. However, it should be noted that while the new site will have an outdoor space, this will not be the equivalent of the gardens of the former Bishop Woodford House Retreat and Conference Centre.
Q. How will staff and visitors get to the Lancaster Way building?
A. Etheldreda House is based on Lancaster Way Business Park which is just outside the village of Witchford, Cambridgeshire, and about 1 mile from the western edge of the City of Ely, Cambridge. To find directions to the new Office, please visit the 'Contact Us' section of the website here.
Q. Wouldn’t it be better to find a site closer to Ely city centre?
A. The project team engaged with external expert agencies to investigate the options available that met the financial, timeframe and site-specification requirements. While there were other options shortlisted, the Lancaster Way Business Park proved the clear best option in terms of its ability to meet all our overall needs.
Q. Did you explore other new office locations in the Diocese, why weren’t they considered or chosen?
A. The project team engaged with external expert agencies to investigate the options available that met the financial, timeframe and site-specification requirements. While there were some options shortlisted, the Lancaster Way Business Park proved the clear best option in terms of its ability to meet all our overall needs.
Q. Will the Archdeacons have desks in the new office?
A. The new office will make working provision for all existing Ely Diocesan Board of Finance (EDBF) staff and this will include capacity for the Archdeacons.
Q. Are the Bishops moving to the new office, if not, why not? Wouldn’t that be better for visitors?
A. The offices of our two Bishops will not be moving to the new EDBF premises. The reason for this is clear. The experience from other dioceses has highlighted that where this has been explored, there are frequently sensitivities around the confidential and pastoral nature of a Bishop’s role. It was therefore not considered advantageous to alter the current working arrangements of the Bishops’ Offices. The new premises will of course have flexible working spaces from where the Bishops are able to work, where there is a desire to do so.
Q. What does this mean for the Diocesan Retreat Centre?
A. The Bishop Woodford House Retreat and Conference Centre has ceased its operations and has been rented to a third party. There are no plans to alter this arrangement or accommodate a similar site in any other location.
Q. The timelines for building this sound ambitious, how will you stick to them and what happens if you don’t?
A. As with all build projects of this nature, no guarantee can be given around build timeframes. Expert guidance is being received for the project timeframes, and plans to extend any interim arrangements will be made in the event we are unable to move into the new site in the planned timescales.