I was disappointed that councillors were unable to build a consensus on this issue. There is a risk that in a desperate attempt to appeal to voters that you enter a bidding race and after a long debate find yourself paying to sit in the chamber!
In way of history, there was a consensus that councillors were the wrong people to set their own pay. Consultants were asked to review both the basic payment all councillors get and the 'special responsibility allowances (SRAs)' that committee chairs, cabinet members and group leaders get. The consultants came to the conclusion the existing basic rate was to low and gave a mixed bag of increases and decreases for the SRA's. Again everyone was in agreement that it would be wrong to have a rise in basic pay when all the staff are seeing salaries frozen. The consultants also suggested where, based on their study, certain SRA's were to low there would be a back dated payment.
In way of history, there was a consensus that councillors were the wrong people to set their own pay. Consultants were asked to review both the basic payment all councillors get and the 'special responsibility allowances (SRAs)' that committee chairs, cabinet members and group leaders get. The consultants came to the conclusion the existing basic rate was to low and gave a mixed bag of increases and decreases for the SRA's. Again everyone was in agreement that it would be wrong to have a rise in basic pay when all the staff are seeing salaries frozen. The consultants also suggested where, based on their study, certain SRA's were to low there would be a back dated payment.
Remembering that we should not be setting our own wages, the Lib Dem group agreed with the proposals, however opposed the £7k back payments as those post holders had agreed to take the post on the old terms and if these payments were for 2012/13, then a back payment was unjustified. (the Tories accepted this bit)
We also noted that the Chairman of Human Resources committee was set to receive £5504 a year as SRA for this post. Although other chairman get this rate and the HR committee no less important, it is only scheduled to meet 4 times a year (other committees meet 8+ times). In fact in the last year it met on 3 occasions and these meetings lasted a total of 7 hours. Although I appreciate the chairman may have some preparation responsibilities and also introduce proposals and answer questions at full Council, the public could not be blamed for thinking the chairman is getting over £785.00 an hour for sitting at the head of the table. This is ridiculous. I couldn't get the Tories to support this.
As for Labour. Well they appeared to be in a confused position*. They didn't want us to set our own wages and oppose the current structure. They wanted an outside body to set the wages, but then dismissed their proposals in favour of the existing proposals they didn't support in the first place. What was odd is Labour, the party more responsible for the financial chaos than any other, was the only party that voted against cutting to cost of councillors.
We ended up following the proposals without the back pay which will save tax payers £15,000 a year. I am satisfied that the HR chair next year has had sufficient warning that the public would probably feel they should not draw the whole salary.
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