HCOMS. Book a demo →
Products · DMS · What the national systems don’t do

We don’t rebuild
the national systems.

A faculty petition belongs in the national portal. A parish return belongs with Data Services. A safeguarding case belongs in the national case system. DMS holds the diocese’s own work — the part on either side of those systems that nobody else covers — and references the national record rather than copying it.

Arrange a demo → Statutory duties
Ref
National case, linked not copied
Both
Sides of the national process
Diff
Where two records disagree
One
Person, place and role spine
①The rule we build to

Reference, don’t duplicate.

It is written into the code, not just the sales deck. Where a national system owns a process, the platform carries its reference and its status — and stops.

①

The national record stays national.

The faculty petition, the annual return, the safeguarding case, the DBS check itself — each stays where it belongs. Duplicating a national workflow creates two versions of the truth and an argument about which is right.

②

The diocese’s own work is the gap.

Before a petition there is advice, a site visit and a committee. After a return there is chasing, comparison and a decision. None of that is national, and almost all of it currently lives in spreadsheets.

③

Disagreement is shown, not hidden.

Where the diocese’s record and a national register differ — a governor, a school, a case status — the difference is a list you can work through, not a silent overwrite. How it fits together →

②System by system

Where each one stops.

Read down the third column. That is the diocese’s working week, and it is what DMS is for.

National systemWhat it ownsWhat it leaves the diocese — and DMS does
Online Faculty Systembecoming the Building Management Portal The petition and List B application, formal DAC consultation, the public notice, and the chancellor’s determination. The DAC as a committee: membership and a composition check, agendas, minutes, delegated authority, site visits, officer advice long before a petition exists, and the conditions to chase afterwards. The portal’s reference and status sit on the case. Church care →
Church Heritage Record The national description and significance of each church building. Condition, urgency and cost. The quinquennial written in the system rather than uploaded as a PDF, the fabric survey, the condition map, and the annual advice return to Historic England.
A Church Near You What the public sees about each church. Everything internal — and a link from the church record so the two are never out of step for long.
Parish ReturnsStatistics for Mission · Finance Return · Energy Footprint Tool Collecting the annual returns and publishing the national figures. Chasing the parishes that have not returned; using the numbers in share, deployment and pastoral decisions; and giving a parish its own figures back through the portal. Parish Portal →
National safeguarding case system Casework on individual safeguarding cases. Who needs what training, and what level of DBS, because of the post they hold — recalculated every morning, with chase lists, exemptions and a forecast. Safeguarding →
National safeguarding learning portal Delivering courses and recording what it delivered. Mapping courses to roles, recording locally delivered training, and producing one compliance answer per person rather than two half-answers.
DBS umbrella bodiesuCheck · Thirtyone:eight The check itself. Knowing who needs one and when it lapses — and refusing to let a licence outrun the check behind it. Their reports import and match themselves.
Church Commissioners & Pensions Board Stipend, pension and housing. Who is in post, from when, and on what terms — the Statement of Particulars, common tenure, and the establishment the diocese can actually afford. Workforce planning →
Crockford & the national clergy register The public record of who is ordained and where. The ministry journey the diocese is responsible for: discernment, curacy, licence, reviews, continuing development, sabbaticals, wellbeing and preferment — in order, on one person. People →
National discernment The panels and their outcome. The DDO’s own pipeline: candidates by stage, ordinand training records, curacy placements and reflections.
Charity Commission PCC registration itself. Knowing which PCCs must register, by when, and chasing the ones that have not — a dated obligation with several hundred parishes attached. Parish finance →
DfE, Ofsted and SIAMS School data and inspection outcomes. The board of education’s own picture: foundation seats and vacancies, governor training, viability on roll and deprivation, and the school estate’s carbon. Church schools →
Historic England, the planning register, the Environment Agency, Land Registry National datasets, each on its own site. Bringing all of them onto the church record as one panel, so a buildings officer sees what constrains the work without opening four websites. Integrations →
Church Commissionerspastoral schemes Making the scheme or Order. Everything before it: proposals, consultation, interested parties, representations, committee papers, and suspension of presentation applied when a scheme enters consultation. Pastoral planning →
Your finance ledgerXero · Sage · Xledger The accounts. Parish share allocation and collection, parochial fees, gift aid and GASDS, grants and glebe — the diocesan money that never fits a ledger’s idea of a customer. Finance →
③What nothing national covers

The list with no owner.

Not partially served, not served by a portal somebody could log into — simply not provided at national level at all.

Parish share

Allocation, offers, collection, arrears and the conversation with each treasurer. Every diocese does it differently, and no national system does it at all.

Parochial fees

Quarterly returns per parish, DBF and PCC shares split per fee row, and sequestration accounts during a vacancy.

Quinquennial inspections

The architect’s round as a rolling programme — who is due, who is overdue, what each report said and whether the work happened.

The DAC as a committee

Membership, meetings, agendas, minutes and delegated authority. The portal handles petitions; it does not run a committee.

Terrier, inventory and churchyards

The record of land, buildings and articles, churchyard capacity and closure — all diocesan duties, all currently in filing cabinets.

Deployment

What the establishment costs, what the diocese can afford, and which posts are proposed to change — modelled, not asserted.

Synod and committees

Elections, allocations, motions and votes; boards and their papers; declarations of interest.

The diocese’s own staff

Employment records, expenses, leave, recruitment and the processes that sit beside clergy conduct without being it.

And the joins between them

The thing no single-purpose system can do: one person, one place, one role — so a churchwarden’s training, their parish’s share, and their church’s inspection are the same record. How it fits together →

④Honest limits

Where we stop, too.

Worth saying before you ask. A supplier who will not name a limit has usually not looked for one.

What we do not do
  • We do not submit faculty petitions. The national portal has no API; its reference and status are recorded by hand, and the field says so.
  • We do not hold the Church Heritage Record. There is no national feed; we link out to it and to Historic England.
  • We do not run safeguarding casework that belongs in the national case system.
  • We do not pay anybody. Stipends and pensions are the Commissioners’ and the Pensions Board’s.
What that buys you
  • No second copy of a national process to keep in step, and no argument about which version is right.
  • A reconciliation view instead: what we hold, what they hold, and what differs.
  • One record of the person, the place and the role that every area shares.
  • A platform that grows by adding an area, not another system.
The national systems know what was decided. Only the diocese knows what still has to be done.
— The principle the platform is built to
Next step

Bring the systems
you already run.

Arrange a demo → All DMS features Back to DMS