(1)The Church Commissioners shall have power to make payments out of their general fund to the Church of England Pensions Board (hereinafter referred to as “the Board”) for the purposes of providing or augmenting—
(a)pensions for deaconesses and lay workers and their dependants [F1widows and widowers]; and
(b)any lump sums paid or payable to deaconesses and lay workers on their retirement from service;
and any such payment may be made on such terms and subject to such conditions, if any, as may be agreed between the Church Commissioners and the Board.
(2)Any sums paid to the Board under subsection (1) above shall be applied by the Board in such manner as the Board, in consultation with the Church Commissioners, thinks fit to implement the purposes mentioned in that subsection and, without prejudice to the generality of the preceding words, the Board may pay part or all of any such sum into the fund established by the Board and known as the Church Workers Pension Fund or any other fund established for the said purposes or any of them.
(3)In this section—
“dependant”, in relation to a deaconess or lay worker, means such person as the Board may consider to have been wholly or partly dependent financially on the deaconess or lay worker at the time of her or his death;
“lay worker” means a person who has been admitted by a bishop as a lay worker of the Church of England and who has been authorised by a bishop, whether by licence or otherwise, to serve as such a worker in a diocese.
Textual Amendments
F1Words substituted by Church of England (Pensions) Measure 1988 (No. 4, SIF 21:5), ss. 10(3), 18(1), Sch. 2 para. 23