Parish Returns
Every year your church is asked to complete returns about membership, attendance, church finances and energy footprint. The national team take your data and produce dashboards for mission and finance which are there to help you answer important questions about your parish or benefice: who lives here, who comes to church and who are we missing or not meeting?
Please complete your return online using the Church of England’s Online Parish Returns System.
If you encounter technical issues with the website, you can contact the National Church's Statistics Unit via email and they will be able to assist with these problems.
If you don't currently have a Parish Returns account please email parishreturns@leeds.anglican.org.
Statistics for Mission return
The deadline for the 2025 Statistics for Mission return is the 13th March 2026 (extended from 31st January).
While the return is meant to be completed online, you might find it useful to use the form below to gather your data.
Statistics for Mission 2025 Leeds Word, Statistics for Mission 2025 Leeds PDF
If you encounter any issues with the system or have any questions about the return, please contact parishreturns@leeds.anglican.org.
Return of Parish Finance
The deadline for the 2025 Return of Parish Finance is 28th June 2026
While the return is meant to be completed online, you might find it useful to use the form below to gather your data.
Return of Parish Finance 2025 - Excel, Return of Parish Finance 2025 - PDF
If you encounter any issues with the system or have any questions about the return, please contact parishreturns@leeds.anglican.org.
Guidance on completing the return can be found here.
Parish Dashboards
Statistics for Mission and Return of Parish Finance data and dashboards are available at any point on the Online Parish Returns System.
Diocese and Deanery dashboards can be found here.
Energy Footprinting Tool
The Church of England’s Energy Footprint Tool is now open for churches to enter fuel and power use from 2025. The data collected from the tool will help your church understand more about its carbon footprint and patterns of energy usage, and is now an essential step for your parish to access funding, including Net Zero Carbon Quick Wins funding.
What do I have to do?
First, watch this helpful walk through video for the Energy Footprint Tool 2026: Energy Footprint Tool 2026 walk through. Then have a look at the Building Checker Tool to see which of your parishes’ buildings are to be included in the EFT. Next, simply enter your buildings’ energy figures from the year before. Once you have entered all the data, you will immediately receive a report and results on your computer or smartphone. This includes:
- The parish/church’s carbon footprint in CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent)
- Changes in CO2e emissions over time
What do I need to get started?
You will need your utility bills for the year before: electricity, gas, oil, or whichever other fuel you use. If you are completing the EFT in 2026, you need your 2025 bills. There is also an opportunity to add information about solar panels, if you have them. If you want to include a separate church hall or other building, then you need the bills for this too. If you want to exclude an area which is permanently rented out to tenants and sub-metered, you will want this information to hand. You will also need a sensible estimate of the number of days per week that the church is used for worship or other activities. Please remember when entering this building usage data that a good estimate is fine.
The Energy Footprint Tool is open until Tuesday, June 30 2026, and you can find it on the online Parish Returns system.
If you have any queries once watching the video, please contact rosalind.cooper@leeds.anglican.org.
Please see below a video answering some questions about the EFT.