Newly elected Synod to meet – but who are they?

The five-yearly elections to the Church of England’s General Synod – effectively its Parliament – are a strange phenomenon.

There are three Houses – one for bishops (most of which are filled ex officio by the diocesan bishops but nine of whom are elected), one for clergy and one for laity. Two hundred clergy and 200 laity were elected over 95 different elections across constituencies comprised of the 42 dioceses and other groupings. Each of these was run by the complex process of the Single Transferable Vote, in which voters number candidates (in some cases over 30 of them!) in order of preference, to elect anything from just one member (but usually three or more) to 13 members to the Synod.

This was perhaps the most hotly-contested, highly-organised set of Synod elections ever, with nearly 1,000 candidates. Most of these were aligned, with three different groupings working to co-ordinate supportive candidates and to encourage voters to vote for their slates. The ballot paper, however, does not include reference to any such affiliation. The electors (clergy in the diocese and lay members on deanery synods) therefore tend to rely on personal knowledge, information in the candidates’ addresses, which can vary in their clarity, and privately circulated lists of recommended candidates by various networks.