Harriet Mathews, the first female British ambassador to Somalia, takes over in October at a diocese budgeting for an £869,000 deficit this year.
A career diplomat who ran the Foreign Office’s Africa and Americas network is taking charge of the Diocese of Chelmsford. Harriet Mathews CMG OBE has been appointed Chief Executive Officer and Diocesan Secretary, and joins in October. The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Revd Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, announced it on Friday 4 September (Diocese of Chelmsford).
Who she is
Mathews joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1997 and spent nearly three decades there. Her record, as published by the government and by the diocese:
- Director General, Africa, the Americas and Overseas Territories at the FCDO, her most recent post, running the embassy network across that area
- the first female British Ambassador to Somalia, in Mogadishu, in 2015 and 2016
- Head of the Ebola Task Force in 2014 and 2015, and Director for Africa from 2018 to 2021
- overseas postings in Brazil, Israel and Afghanistan
- an OBE in 2005 for work in West Africa, and a CMG in 2017 for services to diplomacy, international peace and security and the UK response to the Ebola crisis
(gov.uk)
The diocese says she is a practising Roman Catholic. Diocesan Secretary is a lay executive post rather than an ordained one, and there is no requirement for the holder to be an Anglican.
What the job actually is
The Diocesan Secretary and Chief Executive is the senior executive of the Chelmsford Diocesan Board of Finance, leads the diocesan staff team, and supports the Bishop of Chelmsford and her team.
The diocese is not a Chelmsford body. It is the Church of England in Essex and East London, with more than 500 churches and worshipping communities and 138 church schools (Diocese of Chelmsford). Chelmsford Cathedral is its mother church, and the diocesan office is at 53 New Street in the city centre, which is why the appointment lands here.
What she inherits: a budget that does not balance
The diocese’s own papers are blunt about the finances.
The 2026 budget put to Diocesan Synod proposes a deficit of £869,000 in the General Fund, on income of £20.36m against expenditure of £21.23m. The gap is almost entirely one number: the parish share that parishes are asked to pay, and the part of it that never arrives.
- Parish share allocated to parishes for 2026: £15.622m
- Shortfall assumed in the budget: £2.031m, about 13 per cent
- In 2024, parishes paid only 82 per cent of the share requested
- That year the diocese ran a General Fund deficit of £835,000
Share shortfall ran at about 9 per cent before the pandemic and rose to 18 per cent during it. It was back at around 18 per cent in 2024. The finance director’s paper calls this “the primary reason for the deficit” (Diocesan Synod paper DS(2025)09).
Two other pressures land in her first year. National Church transition funding stops in 2026, worth £280,000 a year. And the number of paid clergy keeps falling: stipendiary incumbent posts are down 12 to 215, and the budget carries an average of 30 stipendiary curates, against 38 the year before.
The five-year forecast turns the £869,000 deficit into a £489,000 surplus by 2030. It depends on parishes paying 93 per cent of their share by then, up from 87 per cent budgeted this year. The paper is candid about why the forecast exists at all. It was prepared, it says, “to check that we are not heading for insolvency”.
Bishop Guli puts the same position in plainer terms on the diocese’s parish share page: “we can budget to spend more on supporting the direct costs of local parish ministry than we request in parish share” (Diocese of Chelmsford).
Who she replaces
Mathews succeeds Canon Michaela Southworth, who announced on 20 April that she would leave at the end of September after five years in the post. Southworth said she had “begun to sense a calling to something new and different” (Diocese of Chelmsford).
Jeffrey Mushens, chair of the Chelmsford Diocesan Board of Finance, said Mathews “was an exceptional candidate in a robust and competitive selection process” and that her “substantial senior leadership experience will be of great value” to the board.
What it means for you
If you go to a church in Essex or east London. The person who decides how the diocesan office is run, and how hard parishes are pressed on share, changes in October. The budget she inherits already assumes your deanery pays more of its share than it did two years ago.
If your child is at a church school. The diocese runs 138 of them. The Diocesan Board of Finance is the body behind that estate, so its finances are not an internal church matter.
If you have no connection to the church at all. The Board of Finance is a registered charity and a company, number 00137029, and its full accounts to 31 December 2025 were filed at Companies House on 17 July 2026. Anyone can read them (Companies House).
If you want to see the cathedral itself, it is in the city centre and is on our list of things to do in Chelmsford.
Sources
- Diocese of Chelmsford, 4 September 2026 for the appointment, the October start, the quotes from Bishop Guli, Harriet Mathews and Jeffrey Mushens, her career summary, and the description of the role.
- gov.uk biography of Harriet Mathews CMG OBE for the 1997 start at the FCO, the Director General post, the Somalia ambassadorship in 2015 and 2016, the Ebola Task Force, the Director for Africa years and the OBE and CMG citations.
- Diocese of Chelmsford, About Us for “more than 500 churches and worshipping communities”, the 138 church schools and the Essex and East London description. The diocesan office address and the company number are published in the footer of the diocese’s own website.
- Chelmsford Diocesan Synod paper DS(2025)09, 2026 Budget and Share Scheme for the £869,000 budgeted deficit, the £20.36m income and £21.23m expenditure, the £15.622m share allocation and £2.031m assumed shortfall, the 82 per cent paid in 2024, the £835,000 deficit that year, the 9 and 18 per cent shortfall history, the £280,000 loss of transition funding, the 215 stipendiary posts and 30 curates, the 87 to 93 per cent forecast, the £489,000 surplus by 2030 and the insolvency check.
- Diocese of Chelmsford, Parish Share 2026 for Bishop Guli’s statement on budgeting to spend more than is requested.
- Diocese of Chelmsford, 20 April 2026 for Canon Michaela Southworth’s departure, her five years in post and her own words about it.
- Companies House for the Chelmsford Diocesan Board of Finance company number and the filing date of its 2025 accounts.
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