Maggie Swinson

Margaret Swinson is an English accountant and Anglican lay leader. Since 2023, she has been the chair of the Anglican Consultative Council, the governing body of the Anglican Communion. She previously was vice chair of the council and has been involved in lay governance in the Communion and in the Church of England for decades.

Swinson is a qualified chartered accountant. She is company secretary of a company that delivers healthcare contracts and has been a non-executive director for two National Health Service trusts, a governor of Liverpool Hope University and vice chair of the charity Christian Aid.^[1][2]

Swinson has been involved in Anglican lay governance for more than 40 years. She has been a member of the General Synod of the Church of England since 1985, where she was involved in efforts to ordain women as bishops.^[3]

Swinson joined the Anglican Consultative Council, which governs the worldwide Anglican Communion, in 2012. She was elected vice chair of the ACC at its meeting in Zambia in 2016.^[3] In this capacity, she chaired the Inter-Anglican Finance and Administration Committee. She also led the panel that selected Anthony Poggo as Secretary General of the Anglican Communion.^[4] Seven years later, during the ACC's meeting in Accra, she was elected chair without opposition. Upon he election, she said her priorities would be maintaining the voices of laity and non-bishop clergy in the council, improving financial stability and attempting to find ways for provinces to remain in the Communion despite their differences.^[4] She was part of the Anglican delegation to the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV in 2026.^[5]

Swinson is a lay canon of Liverpool Cathedral.^[4] She was formally inducted as ACC chair in a 2023 service at the cathedral.^[1]

Since 2022, Swinson has been the independent reviewer monitoring the implementation of the CofE bishops' declaration that governs arrangements made for CofE parishes that cannot for reasons of theological conviction receive the ministry of women bishops.^[6] As independent reviewer, she called for additional resources for two provincial episcopal visitors, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet and the Bishop of Beverley. She noted that Bishop of Ebbsfleet Rob Munro oversees 152 conservative evangelical parishes with 25,000 people in attendance, a total larger than many CofE dioceses, and with Munro as the only CofE bishop holding a complementarian view, Swinson noted that he has no one to deputise for him should be unavailable.^[7][8] After complaints made by Women and the Church, Swinson conducted an independent review of the appointment of Philip North as Bishop of Blackburn and found that it had followed proper processes; however, Swinson suggested future improvements.^[9]

Swinson is a member of and lay leader at the Church of St Matthew and St James, Mossley Hill in Liverpool.^[10] In her spare time, Swinson sings in the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir.^[1]