The Church of England has approved a new statutory instrument resetting fees across a wide range of ecclesiastical proceedings from 1 January 2027. The Ecclesiastical Judges, Legal Officers and Others (Fees) Order 2026 was made by the Fees Advisory Commission on 16 June 2026, approved by the General Synod on 11 July 2026, and laid before Parliament on 31 July 2026. It revokes and replaces the 2025 fees order. According to the text of the Order, the changes reach well beyond one court or one process. They cover faculty petitions, consistory court work, appeals, cathedral cases, clergy discipline, election appeals and a set of annual or miscellaneous payments. For dioceses, registries, cathedrals and church officers, the main point is administrative rather than constitutional: from the start of 2027, the charging basis for this work will operate under a fresh instrument and not under the 2025 regime.
One of the clearest changes appears in article 3, which fixes the fee on submission of a faculty petition at £247 where the petition concerns a building, part of a building, curtilage, or an object or structure subject to the faculty jurisdiction under section 43(1) of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure 2018. That fee is payable to the diocesan board of finance for work carried out by the diocesan advisory committee or an archdeacon. The Order also gives diocesan boards of finance discretion to waive all or part of that fee where those responsible for the building, or another person with a substantial connection to it, already make a financial contribution to diocesan funds. The legislation creates two express exclusions. No fee is payable under article 3 for buildings subject to a sharing agreement within section 38(2)(e) of the 2018 Measure, or for a chapel forming part of Lambeth Palace. In practice, that means parishes and others using the faculty system will need to check both the scope of the petition and whether any local waiver approach is available before submission.
Article 4 deals with diocesan registrar work on the register of patrons under the Patronage (Benefices) Measure 1986. Rather than prescribing a single fixed sum, the Order ties the relevant fee to the Solicitors’ (Non-Contentious Business) Remuneration Order 2009, except where the work already falls within an annual fee payable to the diocesan registrar under section 86 of the 2018 Measure. That drafting matters because it preserves a variable charging model for registry work connected with searches, extracts and certified copies. For benefice patrons, legal advisers and church bodies handling patronage questions, the practical effect is that some routine registry activity will continue to be priced by reference to an external remuneration framework rather than a bespoke flat ecclesiastical tariff.
The largest operational impact is likely to fall within articles 5 and 6, which govern fees in consistory court proceedings and on appeal. The Order states that specified fees are payable to the chancellor or registrar in first-instance proceedings, and to the judge or registrar in appeal proceedings, with hourly certification required for a number of items. Where no fee is specified in Table 1 for a consistory court matter, article 5 provides that the registrar is to receive the amount prescribed for the equivalent matter in the High Court under section 92 of the Courts Act 2003. That cross-reference is significant for practitioners because it avoids gaps in charging where ecclesiastical procedure does not list a bespoke item. It also means that some users of the church courts will need to read this Order alongside secular court fee provisions. In Canterbury, the instrument preserves the separate terminology of the commissary court and Commissary General, and it also sets out how references operate when the Vicar-General’s court exercises faculty jurisdiction instead of the consistory court.
Cathedral oversight is addressed in articles 7 and 8. The Order sets fees for reviews by a Commission of Review under sections 11 and 14 of the Care of Cathedrals Measure 2011, and for proceedings before the Vicar-General’s court in either province under the same Measure. In those Vicar-General’s court cases, the legislation states that the Archbishops’ Council is responsible for paying the fee under section 20B of the 2011 Measure. For cathedrals, this is a reminder that governance and fabric disputes continue to sit within a specialist procedural framework with its own charging rules. The policy point is that the Order keeps those review and court mechanisms aligned with the wider ecclesiastical fees structure, while leaving the underlying decision-making architecture of the 2011 Measure intact.
Articles 9 to 12 deal with formal proceedings under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963 and the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003. The Order provides for registrar fees in doctrine, ritual or ceremonial cases before the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved, for Commission of Review proceedings, for clergy discipline cases brought under section 10 of the 2003 Measure, and for appeals under section 20. In several categories, the instrument requires the judge or registrar to certify hours spent before payment can be made. The payment route is also important. In multiple clergy discipline and reserved-jurisdiction cases, the Archbishops’ Council bears the fee liability under section 62 of the 1963 Measure, sometimes by direct reference and sometimes because section 35 of the 2003 Measure applies that arrangement. For respondents, complainants and tribunal officers, that means the Order is not simply a charging schedule; it also identifies which institutional body ultimately carries the cost in sensitive or high-profile proceedings.
Article 13 sets two fixed payments where a person is appointed under section 4(4) of the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 to act in place of the President of Tribunals. A fee of £240 applies to a set of shorter or more procedural determinations, including out-of-time applications, substitution requests, page-limit rulings and certain safeguarding-related review requests. A higher fee of £463 applies to more substantive decisions, including review of dismissal, referral decisions, case-to-answer determinations, suspension appeals and decisions under rule 14A of the Clergy Discipline Rules 2005. This is one of the few parts of the instrument where the charging structure is visible without consulting the tables. It gives tribunals and registries a clearer basis for budgeting where the ordinary office-holder cannot act. It also shows that the fees scheme continues to distinguish between procedural gatekeeping decisions and fuller merits-based determinations.
Election law and miscellaneous annual payments are covered later in the Order. Article 14 introduces an hourly fee for judges deciding summary election appeals under current House of Bishops, House of Clergy and House of Laity election rules, with the amount linked to the hourly appeal judgment rate in article 12. Article 15 then preserves separate fees for a small group of miscellaneous matters, some payable by the Archbishop, with reimbursement by the Church Commissioners in the cases identified by section 86(6) of the 2018 Measure, and others payable by the Archbishops’ Council. These provisions will matter most to those involved in Synod elections, archiepiscopal administration and central church finance. They do not alter the election rules themselves, but they do confirm the charging consequences when disputes or specified office-holder functions arise under those rules.
The widest access point in the instrument appears in article 16, which imports into ecclesiastical proceedings the same broad approach to exemption, reduction or remission that applies in civil proceedings under the Civil Proceedings Fees Order. Applications are to be made to the registrar, and any discretionary decision that would ordinarily be taken elsewhere under the secular regime is, for these purposes, exercisable by the registrar. Where a person qualifies for remission or reduction, the diocesan board of finance for the diocese concerned must meet the amount that would otherwise have been payable. This is a notable policy choice. It means the Order does not leave fee relief to ad hoc local practice, but instead anchors it to the established remission model used in the civil courts. For applicants of limited means, the effect is potentially significant. For diocesan boards of finance, the consequence is equally concrete: the cost of granted fee relief does not disappear, but is transferred institutionally.
The final provisions are practical but important. Article 17 allows most fees under the Order to be increased by reasonable expenses for travel, subsistence, accommodation and the holding of hearings. Article 18 states that VAT is payable in addition where chargeable. The Explanatory Note confirms that the revised fee structure takes effect on 1 January 2027. Taken as a whole, the Order is best read as a maintenance instrument for church governance rather than a change in doctrine or jurisdiction. It updates the charging framework that supports ecclesiastical courts, registry services, cathedral review procedures and clergy discipline administration. For parishes, dioceses, cathedral bodies and church lawyers, the immediate task is straightforward: any matter expected to run into 2027 should now be checked against the new Order, the linked Measures it references, and the liability rules identifying who must ultimately pay.