Agenda item

For debate and decision.

Cllr Mark Hawthorne, the Chairman of the Constitution Committee, presented the recommendations from the meeting held on 10 March 2014.

30.1    Independent Remuneration Panel

The Chairman thanked William Alexander, the Chairman of the Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP), and his colleagues for their work in assessing councillors’ allowances. 

Mr Alexander explained that the IRP was independent of the Council and made recommendations each year on the level of allowances.  He thanked members for taking the time to speak to the IRP during the interviews in the Autumn.  He said that IRP members had found the information provided most beneficial.  He noted that all the members had welcomed the member induction programme following the May 2013 election.

He paid tribute to the Council for the excellent peer review it had received towards the end of 2013.  He acknowledged that the Council was amongst the highest performing in the country but he was concerned that the allowances remained low and undervalued the role of members.  He recognised that now was not the right time to make significant changes but he hoped that in the longer term steps could be taken to remedy the position. 

Members thanked Mr Alexander and his colleagues on the IRP for all of the work they had undertaken since the election.  A member made special mention of the member induction process and thanked Democratic Services for their efforts in delivering a balanced programme. He believed that the chamber should reflect the population of the county.  He regretted that the Government did not provide guidance on the appropriate level of allowances. 

A member questioned the comparison of member roles at the Council with large businesses.  She also expressed concern at the failure of some members to attend meetings and believed that the allowances should reflect attendance.  She called for the minutes to record when members came in and went out of meetings.

Cllr Mark Hawthorne noted that attendance allowance had been removed by the Government some years ago as it encouraged a ‘meetings culture’.  He said that it was for group leaders to take action if members failed to attend meetings.

A member said that he would not be supporting the increase in allowances as the Council was facing severe financial pressure and was still having to make cuts to services.

RESOLVED

a)        To increase the Basic Allowance (BA) from £8,800 to £9,000 from 1 April 2014 to reflect staff pay rises for 2013-14 and 2014-15.   

b)        To remove the rule of ‘only one Special Responsibility Allowance (SRA)’.  This change does not increase the budget for allowances as the budget assumes that all allowances are taken up.

c)         To adjust the BA multiple (0.66 to 0.6) for the SRAs for committee chairmen and members of the Adoption Panel and Fostering Panel.  This will reduce the value of the SRA from £5,808 to £5,400.

d)        To adjust the BA multiple (0.33 to 0.3) for the SRA for the Vice-chairman of the Council.  This will reduce the value of the SRA from £2,970 to £2,700.

e)        To set the SRAs for the leaders of the main political groups at a BA multiple of 0.65 resulting in an allowance £5,850.

f)          To increase the qualifying number of members for a full Group Leader’s allowance from 4 to 5 members and that Group Leaders of 2, 3 or 4 members receive a proportion of the full allowance.  For example, the leader of a group with 3 members would receive 3/5 of the SRA resulting in an allowance of £3,510.

g)        That the Chairman of the Pensions Committee be given a SRA of 0.6 x BA in line with the allowance for other committee chairmen. This will result in an SRA of £5,400.

h)        To discontinue the provision of a SRA to the Deputy Leader of Council and Cabinet Project Champions.

i)          To maintain the SRAs for the Political Group Spokespersons, commonly referred to as ‘Shadows’, at their current monetary value of £1,500.

30.2    Procedural standing orders: recorded vote

RESOLVED that procedural standing orders be amended by the addition of the following new paragraph 15.7 and renumbering of subsequent paragraphs:

‘15.7    Immediately after any vote is taken at a budget decision meeting there shall be recorded in the minutes of the proceedings of that meeting the names of the persons who cast a vote for the decision, or against the decision or who abstained from voting.’

30.3                Cabinet procedure rules: time limit for submitting questions to Cabinet

RESOLVED that Cabinet procedure rule 9.3 be amended to read:

‘A written copy of the question must have been delivered to the Chief Executive by 4pm three clear working days before the date of the meeting’.

30.4    Monitoring Officer changes to the constitution

RESOLVED to note the amendments to the constitution made by the Monitoring Officer under delegated powers as set out in Annex 3 to the report:

a)        The Confidential Reporting Procedure for Employees (whistle blowing) be amended in accordance with the tracked changes shown in Annex A to the report. 

b)        In Article 6.03.1 the words ‘but normally only in the event of a change of political control of the Council’ be deleted.