All Saints Spring Park Parochial Church Council v Church Commissioners

Under the Mission and Pastoral Measure 2011, only a person who made written representations about a draft pastoral scheme within the notified period, or within a valid extension, has standing to appeal. A notice of intention to seek leave must identify the applicant sufficiently for the Registrar to check entitlement. An unidentified solicitors’ email is invalid. Failure to give valid notice by the deadline requires the Commissioners to make the scheme and deprives the Board of jurisdiction. The Board’s observations that the Church Commissioners were not public authorities under the Human Rights Act 1998, and that the merits appeal would fail, were expressly non-binding.

The Church Commissioners decided that a draft pastoral scheme should proceed. The scheme would dissolve the parish of All Saints Spring Park, divide its area between neighbouring parishes and retain its church as a chapel of ease. The parish council and its incumbent, the Rev Yvonne Clarke, sought to appeal.

The Commissioners challenged the Board’s jurisdiction. The parish council had made representations before the draft scheme existed and further representations after the statutory deadline. Solicitors’ notices of intention to seek leave did not identify the intended applicant or applicants. The central issue was whether the statutory conditions for an appeal under the Mission and Pastoral Measure 2011 had been satisfied.

1. Disposition. The Board held that it had no jurisdiction and would humbly advise His Majesty that the appeal be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
2. Under sections 9 and 12 of the Mission and Pastoral Measure 2011, written representations must relate to the draft scheme and must be submitted by the date specified in the notice, unless the Commissioners extend the period. Only representations made within that period are “duly made”. Representations made during the earlier consultation under section 6, or late representations not covered by an extension, do not confer a right of appeal.
3. The parish council therefore lacked standing. Its February 2020 representations preceded the existence of the draft scheme. Its November 2020 representations were late. A timely letter from James Clarke was written in his personal capacity and did not constitute representations on behalf of the parish council.
4. Schedule 2 required the notice of intention to seek leave to identify the person intending to appeal. Without that information, the Registrar could not determine whether the applicant had duly made representations and was entitled to proceed. The Registrar had no duty to ask solicitors to identify their clients. The email of 5 November 2021 was consequently defective and invalid. Under section 12(3), the absence of valid notice required the Commissioners to make the scheme.
5. The Board nevertheless recorded non-binding observations on the merits. Applying the approach in Aston Cantlow and Wilmcote with Billesley Parochial Church Council v Wallbank [2003] UKHL 37, the Commissioners were neither a core nor a hybrid public authority. Their function in making a pastoral scheme was ecclesiastical, not governmental in nature, so section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 did not apply. The public sector equality duty under section 149(2) of the Equality Act 2010 likewise did not apply. In any event, the relevant impacts had been considered.
6. Had jurisdiction existed, the Board would have dismissed the merits appeal. Its established approach, reflected in Hargreaves v Church Comrs [1983] 2 AC 457, permits intervention only in limited circumstances such as serious procedural irregularity, excess of jurisdiction, error in principle, a clear error, cogent reasons for dissent, or changed circumstances or fresh evidence. Those circumstances were absent. Unless the parties submitted otherwise within 21 days, each party was to bear its own costs.

1. Privy Council — Permission to appeal was granted on 14 July 2022. The Board dismissed the appeals by the parish council and the Rev Yvonne Clarke for want of jurisdiction and advised that the draft scheme should proceed.