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DRAFT DIOCESES, PASTORAL AND MISSION MEASURE
In February, the Synod gave Final Approval to the draft Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure and related legislation. The package gives effect to the recommendations of the group under the chairmanship of Professor Peter Toyne that reviewed the Dioceses and Pastoral Measures, and seeks to improve the Church's structures and processes in order to further its mission. In particular, it will alter the arrangements for diocesan reorganisation (currently contained in the Dioceses Measure 1978) to enable the Dioceses Commission to take a more proactive role and to improve the prospects of bringing to a successful conclusion projects that are in the Church's interest. The draft Measure will also simplify, devolve and make more flexible the procedures in the Pastoral Measure 1983 for pastoral reorganisation and for closure of churches for regular public worship. Lastly, it will provide a framework for the new concept of the 'mission initiative': that is, an initiative that would be likely, through fostering or developing a form of Christian community, to promote or further the mission of the Church or any aspect of it, and which the bishop endorses and makes provision for in a 'bishop's mission order'.
DRAFT ECCLESIASTICAL OFFICES LEGISLATION
The principal items of new draft legislation introduced in February were the Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Measure, the Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Regulations and an associated draft Amending Canon, together giving effect to recommendations of the review of Clergy Terms of Service: recommendations that have been approved by the Synod in a series of debates going back to February 2004. Its aim is to introduce, in the form of 'common tenure', a new framework of rights and responsibilities under which both freehold and licensed clergy will hold office within the Church, as well as making significant...