Neither the Church of England as a central organisation nor its individual parish churches receive any public funds. They rely on raising funds to pay for the upkeep of the buildings, staff stipends (salaries) and chairtable giving through the generosity of parishioners, largely through offertory collections and stewardship schemes, and fund-raising activities. The central Church organisation assesses each parish as to its ability to pay an annual amount towards its maintenance (the Common Fund), including the stipends of the clergy at all levels, and what is left is used by individual churches for their own functioning and for supporting chosen charities.

St. James's Church has an annual income and expenditure of about one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Its chief source of income is from the regular giving of the members of the Planned Giving Scheme, which together with the tax refund that can be recovered on this money, brings in nearly 70% of the income. The church also receives income from donations and fund raising activities, and by hiring out the hall. The finance committee tries to make sure that the church runs its financial affairs wisely.

The finance committee, chaired by the treasurer, discusses the financial situation and how major items should be funded. It advises the Parochial Church Council on all financial matters, including preparing the annual budget for the P.C.C. and for the Common Fund bidding round. The committee also discusses where to invest P.C.C. funds. In particular the finance committee is concerned with the planned giving income and the decision of the amount of the Common Fund allocation to the Diocese and the allocation to charities. They work closely with the planned giving committee whose role is to enhance and develop the major source of income as much as possible. The parish has significant financial activities.

The finance committee meets three or four times a year to consider money matters and to make recommendations to the P.C.C. It considers the accounts in detail before they are submitted to the P.C.C. and the parish, and towards the end of each year it prepares a budget for the next year.

The major expenditure is the contribution to the Common Fund of the diocese. St. James's gives about £60,000 each year, which covers the costs of our parish priests and their housing, as well as the costs of the national church. It also needs to spend on maintaining the church , the hall buildings and the house in Pigeon Lane, and also gives grants to other charities, both locally and abroad; there is a policy to spend 10% of the general income in this way.

The Church of England has always been registered as a charity but new rules were agreed that all churches with an annual income over £100,000 had to register with the Charity Commissioners to receive their own charity number. This was a convoluted process as all P.C.C. members would become trustees of the church. St. James’s Church was given its own charity number - 1129286.

Historical Background to the Finances of St. James's Church
When the new parish was formed, it received twelve acres of glebe towards its endowment from lands belonging to St. Mary's, Hampton. Addtitional funds were raised from offertories, subscriptions, bequests and pew-rents. Nearly a quarter of a century on, the Common Fund assessment was felt to be unfair, given the central role St James's played in the development of the parish. As Hampton Hill then contained nearly half the population of the old parish, a further eighteen acres of glebe land adjoining the vicarage grounds and churchyard were annexed to the living of St. James's in 1889.

Until the early 1920s, individual offertories were directed towards specific parochial funds but these were merged into a single fund to cover a range of expenses. From then on a wide variety of different schemes were tried to encourage regular, systematic giving to supplement or replace offertories. They went under different names, such as Assessment Scheme, Freewill Offering Fund, Christian Giving Scheme, Stewardship and Planned Giving. In addition there were periodic fund raising events for different projects, such as Revd. Brunt's “Great Renovation Drive” in 1953, when he pushed a barrel-organ round the village to raise awareness in the parish. The sale of land and various properties in the parish raised funds for major building projects, such as replacing the old vicarage in 1937, the church hall in 1993 and the west porch in the early years of the millennium.

For a detailed account of the historical background to St. James's Finances, read the page The History of St. James's Church Finances.