Issue - meetings

REPORT OF THE SERVICE DIRECTOR – RESOURCES

To agree the Scale of Fees for electoral events held during 2024/25.

RESOLVED: That Council agreed the Scale of Fees for 2024/25 as set out in Appendix A, to include the following amendments:

·       Section 11 of Appendix A was updated to ‘Uncontested Parish, Town and Community Council Elections.

·       The rates for Poll Clerk, Porter, Administration and Canvassers to be set at £12.83 per hour.

REASON FOR DECISION: To enable the Council to remunerate the Returning Officer and the staff employed to carry out tasks during electoral events and to be open and transparent regarding other payments.

Audio recording – 58 minutes 7 seconds

N.B. The Service Director - Legal and Community, left the Chamber for this item due a conflict of interest being the Deputy Returning Officer for the Council.

The Service Director - Resources, presented the report ‘Electoral Services – Scale of Fees 2024/25, and advised that:

·       The report showed various fees which needed to be set for the elections in 2024-2025.

·       Comments on the feedback where fees needed to be changed was detailed in Section 8.

·       The rates for Poll Clerk, Porter, Administration and Canvassers would be set at £12.83 to be in line with the latest increase in the national living wage plus holiday pay percentage to ensure compliance with legislation.

·       The scale of fees for uncontested elections in Parish, Community and Town Councils was detailed in Section 11 of Appendix A.

·       Feedback for Parish, Town and Community Councils on proposals to introduce uncontested election fees was covered in Appendix B.

In response to a question from Councillor Dominic Griffiths, the Service Director – Resources stated that this was an annual report which sets fees for the coming year and is repeated each year.

As part of the debate Councillor Ralph Muncer noted that often rural residents felt left behind by the District Council and had to pay additional Council Tax to cover the Parish precept. Councillor Muncer noted that District Councils had a statutory responsibility to provide elections and the related administration costs and therefore these costs should be borne by the District Council.

In response to a question from Councillor David Levett, the Electoral Services Manager advised that Parish Council elections are spread out across three years, so were not all up for election at the same time.

Councillor Peace advised the Committee of a comment that she had received late from Holwell Parish Council which was not included in the paper. This was that Holwell had not had a contested election for many years and that the fee sounded rather high for a Parish Council of their size.

Councillor Alistair Willoughby proposed and Councillor Ian Albert seconded and, following a vote, it was:

RESOLVED: That Council agreed the Scale of Fees for 2024/25 as set out in Appendix A to include the following amendments:

·       Section 11 of Appendix A was updated to ‘Uncontested Parish, Town and Community Council Elections.’

·       The rates for Poll Clerk, Porter, Administration and Canvassers to be set at £12.83 per hour.

REASON FOR DECISION: To enable the Council to remunerate the Returning Officer and the staff employed to carry out tasks during electoral events and to be open and transparent regarding other payments.