Issue - meetings

REPORT OF THE DEMOCRATIC SERVICES MANAGER

To agree the Member’s Allowances Scheme 2025/2026 having taken into account the recommendations of the Independent Remuneration Panel (‘IRP’) and consider applying an indexation to the Scheme through to 31 March 2029.

RESOLVED: That Council

(1)   Considered the report and recommendations of the IRP, as attached as Appendix A of the submitted report.

(2)   Agreed the Members’ Allowances Scheme for 2025/2026 as set out in Appendix B, amended as per tracked with specified indexation has been applied for up to the next four years, through to 31 March 2029, subject to a freeze to any increase in Special Responsibility Allowances for 2025/2026. (From 1 April 2026 the Special Responsibility Allowances, as identified by the IRP in Recommendation 12 of their report,  will be index linked.)

(3)   Expressed appreciation to the IRP for their work over the last year on this report.

REASONS FOR DECISION: To ensure that the Council meets its statutory requirements of an annual review and adoption of the scheme.

Audio recording – 20 minutes 37 seconds

The Democratic Service Manager introduced the report entitled ‘Review of Members Allowances Scheme’ and advised that:

·       The Council was currently required to agree on an annual basis, a Scheme of Allowances payable to members for the following financial year. The current Scheme was approved by Council in January 2024.

·       Under the regulations when making or accepting a scheme the Council shall have regard to the recommendations of the Independent Renumeration Panel (IRP).

·       The scheme being purposed by the IRP included an annual indexation therefore if approved would l not require a review until 2028, post the next scheduled District Council elections.

The Chair invited Ms. Margaret Waller, as Chair of the IRP to present their report. Ms. Waller highlighted the following, that:

·       Remuneration should not be seen as an incentive to service nor should the lack of it be seen as a barrier to participation.

·       The proposals included within this report aimed to depoliticise the process of Member allowances.

·       The increase to the basic allowance of 4.1% was in line with Council staff pay award and that for the next three years all basic allowance increases would be in line with Council staff pay award.

·       The new basic allowance would be £5,999, which was slightly below average for neighboring councils.

·       One of the options looked at was increasing basic allowance in line with inflation. However, this was discarded as it would not close the gap identified by the baseline evaluation.

·       The IRP looked at benchmarking payments for Special Responsibility Allowances (SRA) against national figures for councils with similar workloads, as detailed in the data at Appendix 2 and 4.

·       Childcare and Dependent Care Allowances were recommended to increase annually in line with the October 2024 London weighted Real Living Wage of £13.85 per hour.

·       Travel and subsistence rates would remain the same.  However, it was proposed that Councillor could now claim expenses for a taxi on exceptions where no other public transport was available.

The following members asked questions:

·       Councillor Matt Barnes

·       Councillor Alistair Willoughby

In response to questions, the IRP Chair advised that:

·       The IRP did not enquire about the Councils budget forecast as the report was based purely on review findings.

·       The SRA for the Chair of Standards was not raised within the survey and therefore had not been considered for an increase within this review.

The Chair advised that each recommendation would be taken individually.

Councillor Daniel Allen proposed recommendation 2.1, Councillor Tina Bhartwas seconded and, following a vote, it was:

RESOLVED: That the Council considered the report and recommendations of the IRP, as attached as Appendix A of the submitted report.

Councillor Daniel Allen proposed recommendation 2.2, and Councillor Val Bryant seconded.

Councillor Ralph Muncer proposed an amendment to freeze both the Basic Allowance and Special Responsibility Allowances (SRA) for the 2025/26 financial year. Councillor David Barnard seconded the amendment.

The following members took part in the debate about the amendment:

·       Councillor Nigel Mason

·       Councillor Ian Albert

·       Councillor David  ...  view the full minutes text for item 82