Readers are licensed by the bishop to a specific parish, area, or diocese for a specific period of time or until there is a change in the member of the clergy to whom they are licensed (Canons E4 & E6). Readers are authorised:

1. to visit the sick and to read and pray with them.

2. to teach in Sunday School and elsewhere.

3. to undertake such pastoral work and give such assistance to any minister as the bishop may direct.

4. to read Morning and Evening Prayer during the time of divine service, (save for the Absolution).

5. to publish banns of marriage at Morning and Evening Prayer (on occasions on which a lay-person is permitted by statute law so to do, and according to the requirements of that law).

6. to read the Word of God.

7. to preach.

8. to catechise the children.

9. to receive and present the offerings of the people.

10. to distribute the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper to the people.

11. to bury the dead or read the burial service before, at or after a cremation but only, in each case with the goodwill of the people responsible and at the invitation of the minister of a parish or an extra-parochial place within the meaning of section 1 of the Deaconesses and Lay Ministry Measure 1972.