Enabling Choice

The Board has been allocated over £95 million of Church grant funding to help clergy with retirement housing and planning.

This funding, paid over three years, will support:

  • Current Residents and Future Applicants: Ensuring continued access to subsidised retirement housing.

  • Regulatory Compliance: Investing in property upgrades to meet regulatory standards, including working towards EPC C compliance by 2030.

  • Retirement Preparation and Choice: Helping clergy prepare for retirement and make informed decisions, building on the ideas proposed through Enabling Choice. This includes grants towards saving and initiatives to bridge the gap towards home ownership.

This announcement forms part of a broader clergy well-being package, which also includes previously announced pension improvements.

The full release is available here: Church of England Press Release

The funding is expected to be available to the Board from early 2026 and preparatory steps are already underway.

The investment will seek to help clergy prepare well for retirement and make informed choices about their plans building on the ideas proposed through Enabling Choice. The package includes offering grants towards saving and to bridge the gap towards home-ownership.

What is Enabling Choice all about?

In the future, Enabling Choice means that from the first call to ministry, clergy will be encouraged, empowered and practically supported to develop the right retirement housing plan for their circumstances. Enabling Choice involves a shift from putting all the effort into help with housing at retirement, to investment, new services and initiatives throughout ministry that put clergy in the driving seat of their retirement journey. There are four elements that the Board believes are essential to this:

  • Sparking planning ahead and encouraging saving, with regular conversations, support and services throughout ministry.
  • Enabling home ownership during ministry, through overcoming barriers to level the playing field between clergy and their peers.
  • Opening doors to different retirement housing options, working with faith-based and market providers.
  • Continuing to offer quality Church retirement homes to those for whom fewer other choices are available, but with an aim that this is the case for fewer clergy over time.

What does Enabling Choice mean in practice?

Housing and future plans become a regular conversation across ministry, with quality signposting, information, services and ‘check points’ to help clergy make informed decisions about their financial future, starting from vocation, through to ordination training, through to first post and beyond. This might include a kick-start too, for all ordinands towards saving for their future. This is about creating planned and resourced ‘moments’ to prompt thinking and planning, not just getting a leaflet or email once in a while.

Below you can watch some of our recently recorded webinars on Enabling Choice.