| Administrative History | In 1986, Derby diocese formed a Faith in the City Advisory Group, in response to the publication of Faith in the City (London: Church House Publishing, 1985), a landmark report by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Urban Priority Areas. This led to the formation of Derby Diocese Faith in the City Committee (FCC), which held its first official meeting in June 1988. In 1990, a rural equivalent of the Faith in the City report was published, called Faith in the Countryside. To take account of the needs of rural areas, FCC was reconstituted as the Faith in the County Committee on 22 Jul 1991, with no break in the administrative arrangements or records of the committee. The FCC’s role was to advise the Bishop of Derby about which projects he should commend to the trustees of the Church Urban Fund (CUF, a registered charity set up in 1987 by the Church of England, also in response to the report) and the Bishop of Derby’s Urban Fund (BDUF, which ceased to exist in 1995). Though responsible to the Bishop’s Council, rather than to CSR, there were close links between the two bodies: from its inception, the CSR provided the FCC’s secretariat, and in April 1990 the FCC Project Working Group was set up, as a joint working group of the FCC and the CSR. There were discussions about the role of the FCC during 1995-1996: it was suggested that, as the FCC was duplicating the work of CSR, it should be disbanded, with the FCC Project Group becoming directly responsible to the CSR. However, concerns that this would affect the CSR’s charitable status prevented this step from being taken until 18 April 1997, when the bishop’s council voted for a formal winding-up (see memorandum in D6459/3). Responsibility for ongoing projects was then transferred to the CSR; the FCC’s accounts were finally closed in 2003. |