Issue - meetings

The committee received a report from the Independent Remuneration Panel (the Panel) which contained recommendations following a review of the current allowances for special responsibility.

The recommendations of the Panel were as follows:

     i.        That two new Special Responsibility Allowances (SRA) be created, Executive member without portfolio, for the Chair of the City Deal Board (if that be a member of the City Council) and Member of the City Deal Board.

    ii.        That the SRA for the Chair of Planning be raised in relation to the Chairs of all other committees.

   iii.        That SRAs be removed from all committee members with the exception of the Planning Committee.

  iv.        That the Chair and Vice-chair of the Planning Committee do not receive an additional SRA as a Member of that committee.

   v.        That the SRA for the Minority Group Leader be removed.

  vi.        That SRAs for spokespersons of both Opposition and Minority groups be retained for scrutiny committees only and SRAs for spokes of other committees be removed.

 vii.        That the number of SRAs that any Councillor may hold be limited to two.

viii.        That the SRAs be set as in the Table below.

The Panel had recommended that a further review should be undertaken two years from completion of the report, from February 2017. 

The Democratic Services Manager advised that he would seek clarification from the Panel to confirm if those Councillors who sat on one Committee, but shadowed two Executive Councillors, would accrue two SRAs or one.

Councillor Robertson stated the following:

     i.        Did not want to deter people from applying for the role of Councillor due to lack of financial support.

    ii.        The work of the Planning Committee was not restricted to just the Chair. In respect of the onerous nature of the Committee’s work and the amount of meetings scheduled, the responsibility paid to all Members should continue.

   iii.        In acknowledgment to the time consuming nature of the work and gravity of decisions that were made by the Licensing Committee, the extra responsibility paid to Members should not be scrapped.

  iv.        The remuneration of the SRA for the City Deal did not reflect the amount of the work and level of decision being undertaken.

   v.        Immediate recognition of the Combined Authority and Crime Panel needed to be actioned. 

Resolved (unanimously) to recommend to Council:

     i.        To agree the recommendations of the Independent Remuneration Panel, and to report to Council an Allowances Scheme 2017/18 for adoption.

    ii.        That the Council approves any budgetary requirement up to £5,535 (plus 2,240 or 1,120 depending on the City Deal appointment) from Reserves for 2017/18 and with subsequent years’ funding coming from efficiencies in Democratic Services budgets.