Agenda item

Now that the Committee system has been in place for some time [since May 2021] it is timely to undertake a review of all allowances, and because the last full review was undertaken in July 2019.

The Regulations require the Council’s IRP to review its Members’ Allowances Scheme every four years.

[30 minutes]

The Chair thanked the Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) for their hard work, and then invited the Group Head of Law and Governance to introduce the report. Appendix 1 contained the report and completed by the Panel, the work for which had commenced in July 2023. The last full review of the Members’ Allowances Scheme had been approved by Council in July 2019. An interim review had been undertaken by the IRP in November 2020 which hadreviewed the Special Responsibility Allowances (SRAs) of the Leader and Deputy Leaderof the Council and Cabinet Members in preparing for the Council’s move from a Leader and Cabinet form of governance over to a Committee system. It was acknowledged at that time that a full review would be required in subsequent years. The Group Head of Law and Governance thanked each of the Panel members for the huge amount of work they had undertaken, the quality of their report, and the clarity of analysis. He also thanked the Committee Services Manager for her work in supporting the Panel and the process. The Panel’s report provided sound evidence based analysis and conclusion that took into account the experience of the Council and Councillors since the move to the Committee system, and data from a range of sources. He explained that it was within the power of the Committee to ask for the Panel to carry out further work. In that scenario the Committee would need to extend the terms of office for the Panel, to allow time for this work to be carried out.

The Chair then invited the Chair of the Panel, John Thompson to present the Panel’s report. He explained the role of the IRP was to make recommendations to the Local Authority, which only needed to take account of them. What tended to happen with IRP reports was that most recommendations were accepted, few were amended and very occasionally some were rejected. He highlighted that the SRA for the Leader of the Council had been low, and they aimed to increase this to a level that was fair but not over-generous. He highlighted that one Member had asked questions in advance of the meeting around this, and answers had been provided. The Panel had undertaken an extensive amount of work around SRAs for the Chair’s and Vice-Chairs of Service Committees, looking at workloads and responsibilities, comparing these to both previous Cabinet and current Statutory Committees. The recommendation was to bring the SRA for these broadly in line with the Statutory Committees, as the workload was comparable. They noted the workload of all Councillors had increased and it was felt the savings from the reduction of Chair and Vice-Chair of Service Committees SRAs should be added to the basic allowance. The Planning Committee remained very busy, and it was felt a small increase for the Chair and Vice-Chair of Planning was justified. They felt the SRA for the Leader of the Opposition should be broadly in line of that paid to Chairs of the Service Committees.

The recommendations were proposed by Councillor Wallsgrove and seconded by Councillor Turner.

The Chair then invited questions and debate from Members. It was observed that there was an error in the report on page 12 in that the Chair of Planning Committee should show £7500, not £8000, which had been clarified by the Group Head of Law and Governance prior to the meeting.

A number of questions had been raised prior to the meeting, for which answers had been provided. One of these related to the figures that underpinned the report relating to the Leader’s allowance in comparable districts. The nearest commensurate council was Mid-Sussex, where the leader received £20,000. It was thought Arun was at the lower end for SRA for the Leader. It was asked whether in future a table could be provided with such figures, which would add depth to the report. The Chair of the Panel explained they would be happy to provide these figures in future, however, it should be noted that the source of the figures was not always kept fully updated, and there may be some errors if placing too much reliance on data that could be out of date.

Support was offered for the Panel’s report, which was felt fair and balanced. Sound reasoning had been provided for the recommended changes. Support was offered for the reduction in SRA for Service Committee Chairs.

The  Committee

 RESOLVED that

1        It had considered the report of the Independent Remuneration Panel on its tenth review of the Members’ Allowances Scheme, together with the financial appraisal set out in Paragraphs 4.4 to 4.8, read in conjunction with the Panel’s report and recommendations.

RECOMMEND TO FULL COUNCIL that

2       The new scheme be approved for final adoption.