The Cathedrals Measure 2021

The coming into force of the Cathedrals Measure 2021 requires all English Cathedrals to reorder the organisational structures which enable them to function from day to day and, consequently, to rewrite their governing documents.

Salisbury’s current Constitution and Statutes were compiled in 2001, following the passage of the last Cathedrals Measure (of 1999). But a new Measure requires a new Constitution and new Statutes. These have been drafted by the Chapter. The drafts have been approved by both the Church Commissioners and the Charity Commission. They accord with what the new Measure stipulates. Now you are invited to read them and give your feedback on them.

The draft Constitution and Statutes are available below.

Salisbury Cathedral Constitution – July 2022

Salisbury Cathedral Statutes – July 2022

If you wish to comment upon them then please write your observations in an email and send it to: thedean@salcath.co.uk before Monday 24th October 2022.

• The essential change is that when the new Constitution and Statutes take effect the Cathedral’s sole trustee body will be the Chapter, comprising the Dean, the Residentiary Canons, and up to eight ‘non-executive’ members (at least two thirds of whom must be lay people). The Bishop will attend a meeting of the Chapter at least once every year, and will appoint one of the non-executive members (the ‘senior non-executive member’).
• Like the majority of other charitable bodies, the Cathedral will be regulated the Charity Commission. Further provisions will add to our good governance: statutory Committees will be established covering Nominations, Finance, and Audit and Risk; and the Cathedral’s strategic/operational Executive Team will have its own defined role for the first time. A Cathedral Worshippers’ Forum will represent the views of worshippers to the Chapter, and vice versa.
• The Cathedral Council, in place since the Measure of 1999, will be abolished; and the College of Canons will remain but will no longer have a governance function in the Cathedral’s life.

You will discover all these changes, and others besides, in the documents. I look forward to receiving your views, and to the renewal of our common life which the new structures will allow.

The Very Revd Nicholas Papadopulos

Dean of Salisbury