National Church Institutions | The Church of England

There are seven national administrative bodies that work together to support the mission and ministries of the Church. These are called National Church Institutions (NCIs).

Each has a role to play in helping the day-to-day work of churches across England. We serve as the Church’s central office, managing finance, education, communications, and more, to keep the Church of England growing.

We work with parishes, dioceses (regional offices), schools, other ministries and our partners at a national and international level.

The NCIs are separate legal entities, but they are a common employer. The present arrangements were established under the National Institutions Measure 1998. The seven NCIs are:

The majority of NCI staff are based at Church House in Westminster, Lambeth Palace, the Lambeth Palace Library, and Bishopthorpe Palace near York.

Structure chart for the NCIs

This structure chart shows the seven NCIs, and the teams and the people who lead those teams within each NCI.

Download the structure chart for the NCIs.

NCIs service complaints policy and procedure

At the National Church Institutions (NCIs) we aim to provide a helpful, efficient and quality service to those we serve. Should something go wrong we want to put things right for the people or organisations involved.

This policy and procedure relates specifically to the work of the NCIs. It does not cover complaints concerning officeholding clergy, or about a Diocese, Cathedral, Religious Community or other Church body.

Our response to unacceptable behaviour towards staff

We are committed to openness in all our work, seeking constructive conversations and dialogue built upon trust. We seek to do the right thing, no matter how challenging the circumstances. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with equality, dignity, and respect, not least in the workplace and are committed to providing a supportive, positive and inclusive working environment that fosters a culture where all our employees can thrive and feel valued.

We have a duty to provide our staff with a working environment free from abuse and harassment. We will seek to oppose harassment or abusive behaviour against our employees from any person our staff may engage with during their work duties.

Internally we ask staff to treat each other in line with our NCI values and Dignity at Work policy. This statement covers our external interactions and applies to all individuals or groups of individuals with whom NCI staff interact as part of their job role, but who are not employed by the NCIs.

Unacceptable behaviour from third parties towards our staff will not be tolerated and we will support any of our staff who are confronted with such behaviour. We will deal with unacceptable third-party behaviour, professionally, consistently, and fairly. We aim to be transparent about what we consider to be unacceptable and outline the steps we may take to deal with such behaviour.

How we define unacceptable behaviour

For the purposes of this statement, unacceptable behaviour is defined as: Behaviour or language (written, verbal or online) that we consider may cause staff to feel intimidated, afraid, offended, degraded, threatened, abused, humiliated, or upset. How someone behaves online is considered to be equivalent to face-to-face behaviour.

Examples of this include (this list is illustrative, not exhaustive):

Communication (face to face, telephone, online or social media) that we consider to be unreasonably demanding, or unreasonably persistent in its frequency, type, and nature.
Inflammatory/derogatory statements, remarks of a racial or discriminatory nature and unsubstantiated allegations.
Repeated contact regarding the same issue – this may be with one member of staff or several, particularly where said issue was previously resolved as far as practicably possible.
Unreasonable demands or undue persistence which starts to impact substantially on the work of our team. For example, repeatedly demanding responses within unreasonable timescales, insisting on speaking to a particular member of staff when that is impossible, or repeatedly contacting us in respect of decisions we have taken and with which you disagree.
Violent behaviour – physical contact made in an aggressive or threatening manner.
Threatening behaviour – words or actions that cause a person to be concerned for their safety, the safety of colleagues, or the safety of their property. This includes visual gestures; aggressive stance; sexually explicit or threatening language or body language; abusive phone calls and on-line bullying.
Abusive behaviour – offensive gestures; aggressive stance; abusive, provocative or obscene language and inappropriate use of social media.

Our response to unacceptable behaviour

If behaviour towards a member of our staff is unacceptable, and depending on the exact nature, circumstance, and location of the behaviour/incident(s), we will take the following steps:

If staff are comfortable to do so, they will ask the person to modify their behaviour and explain why.
If the behaviour continues staff are advised to remove themselves from the situation/s and report it to their line manager who will record the incident/s.
The line manager will investigate the situation and decide what action to take. This may include contacting the third party to explain why their behaviour is unacceptable, restricting or ceasing future engagement with the third party or making a formal complaint to the third party’s employer.

Any criminal or anti-social behaviour may need to be escalated to the police and we may then take further action following investigation by the police.

If a third party disagrees with the response taken, they are entitled to make a complaint through the NCIs Service Complaints Policy and Procedure.

Gender Pay Report

All voluntary, private and public sector employers with 250 or more employees are required to publish their gender pay figures on an annual basis.

We have one common pay policy covering the majority of staff across the NCIs, and a separate performance-related policy for a small number in our Investments department who are employed by the Church Commissioners. For the purposes of our reporting, we will focus on the larger group of NCIs staff covered by the common pay policy. Gender pay data for the Investments department is shown separately in our report.

The NCIs gender pay report does not include any data that relates to employees in dioceses or the Clergy of the Church of England who are Officeholders. The majority of Clergy, who are Officeholders, are not covered by the reporting requirements of the legislation. Any other Church employer who meets the reporting requirements will be reporting individually. However, very few are expected to be of a size that is reportable.

The information contained in the report refers to ‘pay’ as a per annum salary. This data will be presented as an hourly rate on the Government website. The percentage difference will remain the same.

Our latest report covers the 2023–24 reporting cycle, using a snapshot date of 5 April 2023.

NCIs 2023 Gender Pay Report

Our gender pay gap report archive: