wannabepriest

This is just a brief addendum to my two much longer posts about the future of CHP’s book and new media work respectively.

With the publication of the Common Worship library between 2000 and 2007, there was tremendous potential of course for CHP to turn a nice tidy profit. Indeed, one of the reasons that the Archbishops’ Council stated back in the mid-nineties for awarding the publishing contract to its own in-house publisher was to ensure that those funds didn’t go elsewhere to a commercial publisher but instead were used to benefit the Church of England.

Now that I’m standing on the outside, I can’t tell you exactly how much money CHP made for the Archbishops’ Council from the publication and sale of the various books in the Common Worship library. I don’t have access to the records anymore. I tried to dig back through old Reports of Proceedings (as you do) without much luck. I did find initial estimates referred to in those Synod records of £1 million plus, revised a year later down to around £627,000 but that figure at the time still included substantial stock-holdings.

Certainly, in those first couple of years between 2000 and roughly 2003, if I recall correctly, substantial amounts of money were made through the sales of Common Worship. Easily six figures and maybe up around the quarter to half a million mark, but that’s guess-work on my part and shouldn’t be taken as gospel-truth. My memory gets a little hazy when it comes to mathematics but it was something like that anyway.

Anyway, I know some people knew of this money and clocked it because members of the Liturgical Commission fought hard during those years with General Synod and staff at the Archbishops’ Council for some of that money to be used to employ and resource a National Liturgical Officer. You can certainly find all that in the Reports of Proceedings.

However, the important point that I want to make is this. To the question – where did all the Common Worship profits go? The answer is very simple – the Archbishops’ Council snaffled the lot back into its central funds. CHP were never allowed to use any of that money to invest in their own future. I think I am also right in saying that it was never allowed to appear on their bottom line. It was kept totally separate.

In later years, once the initial rush had dissipated and such big sums of money were in the past, I think I am right in saying that CHP were finally allowed to bring the liturgical publishing turnover into their figures.

I just thought that was an interesting thought to remember in the context of the AC’s recent decisions to outsource much of CHP’s publishing function.

As a postscript, I tell you what else is interesting – I bet they won’t be able to get Hymns Ancient & Modern to publish General Synod’s Reports of Proceedings without the AC providing subsidies. I think I’m right I’m saying that Synod buy a copy for each Synod member and that’s about the only ones that ever get sold – not exactly a money earner. Yet another thing that CHP has had to do as a ‘service’ to the AC.