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1. The GA, Beneficiary Fund and the AIF are separate entities

The General Assembly (GA), Beneficiary Fund and the Amalgamated Investment Fund (AIF) are separate legal entities with their own governance, accountability and reporting responsibilities. Each is audited separately.

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The Council of Assembly (which reports to the members of the Church) oversees the General Assembly accounts. The national office is part of these accounts.

The Beneficiary fund is administered by Aon (an external party) and overseen by the Beneficiary Fund Trustees, who report to the Beneficiary Fund members and to General Assembly. Aon reports monthly to the Trustees.

The AIF is overseen by the Church Property Trustees (CPT) and they report on their trustee obligations to depositors (through monthly statements of their own accounts) and to the General Assembly

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Consistent with good practice and improving the reporting standards, some initiatives are underway. These include:

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AIF is to have a separate bank account and from later this month all AIF transactions will be entirely separate from the General Assembly’s accounts.

Monthly AIF management reports to the CPT are being upgraded to provide better information to assist with decision-making.

There is a plan in the next couple of months to make the AIF statements to depositors more distinctive and informative.

The GA produces monthly management accounts for the A&F Policy Group and they are being upgraded on a regular basis.

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By law the CPT also holds all the property of the church. Each property is held in trust for that particular parish as part of Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and the way it is held ensures that no parish (or other branch) can impact upon the property of another parish.

2. Annual insurance update starts this month

The annual insurance renewal round starts this month. Essentially it goes like this:

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The circulation of current insurance schedules, which need to be updated and returned to the Assembly office before the end of May

Updated data is provided to Aon the insurance brokers

Insurance market discussions by Aon on your behalf

Insurance committee meets to discuss the information provided by Aon

Renewal process is put in place before 31 July 2005

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Invoices issued for insurance premiums for the 2005/06 insurance year (1 August to 31 July)

3. Assembly Assessment underpayment at 15 percent at the end of March

There continues to be a significant level of underpayment of Assembly Assessment at 15 percent as of the end of March. This is of serious concern when the payment of “Seniority Allowance” has been made and borrowings have been required to make such payments.

4. Grateful for the help to clearing historical accounting items

With assistance from several parishes, we have been able to clear a number of historical accounting items. Those parish statements have been cleared of a lot of historical items and are now so much easier to read. We are keen to continue with this exercise of working with parishes.

5. Level of complaints falls to one in a month

The level of complaints to Finance continues to fall. In a recent period there was one complaint. From November 2004 we have been monitoring “email queries, action requests and complaints” and the trend is encouraging. However, one complaint is one too many so we are not complacent about what has been achieved.


Andrew Jackson
Assistance to AES (Finance)