Culture Media and Sport Committee calls for permanent VAT Relief for Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme(LPOW).
Dame Caroline Dinenage DBE MP, Chair, Culture Media and Sport Committee writes:
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is currently examining Britain’s built heritage and the challenges that those responsible for it face when accessing funding, training, and support. As the Department works through its business planning process, following June’s Spending Review, we are writing to highlight the evidence we have already taken on the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme.
The Scheme was initially introduced in recognition of the social work of churches and their important contribution to our country’s heritage. These features still stand: 45% of the UK’s Grade I buildings are owned by the Church of England and churches remain communal spaces for social and charitable activities. We know how important the condition of church buildings is to the work that they do. In our recent evidence session on the sector, we heard from Rev. Paula Griffiths that: ‘if a church has to concentrate purely on fundraising and keeping the rain out, it cannot fulfil its wider purpose. It cannot work with its congregation; it cannot work with its community in the way it has the potential to do’.
However, the scheme has always lacked permanence. Funding that is only ever guaranteed for a few years at a time is not fit for a sector reliant on projects that take five years to prepare and fundraise for. Not only does this create anxiety and uncertainty among the volunteers attempting to restore their historic buildings, but it disincentivises projects which cannot count on the scheme’s support in the future. As the Church of England explained in our recent evidence session: ‘projects take so long to plan, fundraise for and get permissions for, so if people know that [the scheme] is going to be done on a year-by-year basis and that they will always be waiting to hear, I think the number of projects will drop off’.
The Government’s recent cap on individual claims of the scheme has furthered this instability. Projects which were about to begin or are currently underway must now re- evaluate their programmes and decide whether they are still viable. Most will be forced to either fundraise past already monumental targets or let contractors and communities down. The Church of England estimates that over 200 of the 260 cathedrals and churches beginning or undertaking projects have been impacted by this cap, and that 40 of these are projects of £2 million or more.’
It is important to acknowledge that the annual claimants’ cap of £25,000 doesn’t just impact works on major projects or cathedrals. Even standard maintenance works, such as roofing projects, could breach this cap. While we appreciate the Government’s argument that 94% of previous applications had been under this cap, we share Anthony Grimshaw Associates concern at ‘how little urgent repair work’ this suggests the sector is able to undertake.
Therefore, we are calling for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme to be made permanent and for the cap on individual claimants to be removed. We appreciate that this may encourage more funding to be claimed from the scheme and as a result ask that the Department reviews the scheme’s overall budget.
