Commissioners and religious order top charity pay table

TOP SALARIES in the faith-based charity sector are being paid by the Church Commissioners and a community of religious sisters, according to new research published by Third Sector magazine.

A detailed breakdown of the highest earners at the largest 150 charities by income shows that in the “faith organisations and religion” section, top of the list are the Church Commissioners – managers of the Church of England’s extensive land and property portfolio. They paid their highest earner £334,000, although this included a long-term performance payment of £91,000.

Second on the list are the Daughters of the Cross of Liège, who paid one individual between  £190,000 and £200,000. The order, whose latest accounts show it had a turnover of £65 million, runs a hospital, a care home, a hospice and a centre for epilepsy.

Asked if the salary was a lot of money, the provincial, Sr Veronica Hagen, said: “It is, but we do run very demanding services. That salary, however, has now gone from our portfolio.”

Sr Veronica pointed out that the order oversees specialist work that requires significant expenditure and gave the example of their epilepsy centre, St Elizabeth’s in Hertfordshire, which employs 600 people.

Others paying large salaries in the faith sector include the Archbishop’s Council – the Cabinet Office equivalent of the Church of England – which paid one member of staff between £150,000 and £160,000 (this includes severance payments), and the Oasis Charitable Trust – a Christian charity founded by Steve Chalke, a Baptist minister – which paid out one salary of £120,000-£140,000.

There has been a debate over the pay of charity chief executives after William Shawcross, the chairman of the Charity Commission, questioned whether aid charities should pay six-figure salaries. He was responding to 2013 research in The Daily Telegraph showing that the number of executives being paid more than £100,000 had risen from 19 to 30 in three years.

However Cafod, Oxfam, Christian Aid or several other members of the Disasters Emergency Committee that had been singled out for criticism in 2013 did not make it into the Third Sector table. The research also compared chief executive pay in charities to other sectors that shows that charities pay their highest earners 25 per cent less.

At the top of the high earners list is the London Clinic, an independent charitable hospital, which paid one individual £850,000-£860,000 although this included contractual payments in lieu of notice.