THE DECISION not to introduce a ‘two-tier’ Executive Board, with two salary levels to ‘take account of the differences in responsibilities attached to specific posts’ was welcomed by the Executive Board of Carmarthenshire County Council.
In a meeting on Monday, (Apr 25) the Independent Remuneration Panel of Wales’ (IRPW) report from February was discussed. This report, which stated that there will be ‘no increase in remuneration given the continuing constraints on local government spending,’ had already been before the Democratic Services Scrutiny Committee.
The recommendations of the committee were that the basic salary for county councillors should remain at £13,300 per annum for 2016-17.
The committee also decided to use the discretion available to recommend that the two-tier executive pay scheme was not invoked, and that the status quo remained regarding Executives, Committee Chairs, and the Chair and vice chair of the council.
However, the minutes revealed that the need for two deputy leaders was queried ‘particularly in view of the fact that the Authority is trying to save money.’ However, it was explained that the extra allowance for the deputy leader was divided between both parties, though the Head of Administration and Law did agree to ‘relay the committee’s comments to the leader.’
Deputy Leader Cllr Pam Palmer introduced the report and recommendations. Cllr Palmer was ‘pleased to recommend’ that the twotier system was ‘banged on the head.’
Suggesting that having two different pay grades would have been ‘divisive’ she added: “We all work extremely hard, and the general public out there don’t realise just how much work we do. It’s not just a question of working in here it’s our own constituency work as well.
“As you will appreciate there is a standstill budget this year for councillors standard remuneration and we have to accept that but I am very pleased to say that I would recommend the two tier system for executive board was actually banged on the head as would everyone else.”
HUGE RESPONSIBILITIES
Councillor Meryl Gravell had ‘no problem’ accepting the recommendations, but questioned the independence of the Independent Remuneration Panel. Looking to the future, and the possible merging of several local authorities, she suggested that thought be given to the need to attract ‘young and new people onto local government’, presumably through a competitive pay packet.
Cllr Gravell also suggested that t h e role of Executive Board Member was far more demanding than that of Assembly Member: “I think they’ve got to understand the difference in responsibilities,” she said.
“AMs are there to scrutinise. They’ve got no responsibilities whatsoever whereas an Executive Board Member has huge responsibilities, and I know that my colleagues who have come on recently have worked extremely hard since they took up their posts.
“I think that it is only when you do the work that you realise, first of all how important it is, and secondly how really, really hard you have to work.
“The amount of hours that have been put in by Executive Board Members is quite a lot; it is heavy going and we do need to look to the future.
“Some of us are coming to retirement age, and I do wonder sometimes how we can encourage quality people, because that is what you need at the end of the day. These are important decisions that have to be made.
INDEPENDENCE QUESTIONED
Chief Executive Mark James – whose remuneration is subject to scrutiny from the IRPW – also questioned the panel’s impartiality, given that this year a remit letter from the Minister for Public Services had been sent to the Panel, ‘in which he drew the Panel’s attention to the desire of Welsh Government to reduce the cost of politics to the public purse’ as the report put it.
“I think this is difficult for members because this is payments that are made to you, but it does seem somewhat inequitable that MPs and AMs are receiving pay rises, and for the last 3-4 years councillor salaries have gone down not up or been frozen,” Mr James said.
“It is interesting to look at just how independent this remuneration panel is, because they get a remit letter every year from a minister telling them what they should and shouldn’t be looking at and doing. So I don’t think it is all that independent, really.”
“I think all elected people in the UK should be treated equitably in the same way. It doesn’t appear as if local councillors who do work incredibly hard both in their constituencies, and if they’ve got any form of executive role or chair a scrutiny committee it is quite onerous and there is a big time commitment. Of course you are right in the public eye, in a way that others perhaps are not, so it does seem unfair.”
‘ON CALL’ 24/7
Cllr Palmer suggested that the problem was that ‘AMs and MPs don’t understand how much constituency work they [councillors] do.’
“You’re on call 24 hours a day, and believe you me, I can only speak for myself but I am sure the rest of you will agree it’s not unusual to get phone calls in the middle of the night if there is an emergency on,” she added.
“If you’ve got a washing machine that goes wrong, your call-out fee to start with is about £65 minimum. And when we get called out in the middle of the night as does happen – it’s happened to me on very many occasions – then, thank you very much and you’re only as good as your next cross in the election.
“I think whilst we’re talking about attracting younger people I think that you must realise that if you’ve got a mortgage, no matter how much commitment you may have to your community, to actually give up a job on a four-year term isn’t a very attractive proposition, especially on the salaries that are being given.”
The current salary for a member of the Executive Board is £29,000, rising to £31,250 for deputy leaders, and £48,000 for the leader.
Cllr Palmer suggested that AMs and MPs “only get involved when we have failed, and we have usually failed for very good reasons.
“Then of course they get involved and let’s say that sometimes the results are not what they could be,” she added.
“I’m quite happy for anyone to scrutinise the amount of work I do in the course of a year, and I think they would be very surprised.”
Council Leader Emlyn Dole agreed that there could be questions raised about the independence of the Panel: “Let’s call it what it is, and drop the word ‘independent’ – if that letter is an annual event then it needs to be looked at,” he added.
However, Cllr Dole praised the work that had been done by the council in getting younger people interested in the work it carries out, drawing attention to a successful budget consultation exercise held in Parc y Scarlets.
In terms of pay, he suggested that “it seems the principle is that the nearer you are to the people the less it is, and that’s a strange equation to me.”
BALANCE NEEDED
Councillor David Jenkins sounded a note of caution regarding the need for increased remuneration: “I think we’ve got to be careful to strike a balance here, because I don’t think we want this chamber full of professional politicians,” he said.
“We are here to represent the people of our communities, and we are here because we have had a democratic mandate to do so.
Cllr Jenkins suggested that a balance needed to be struck, and acknowledged that there were ‘good youngsters who can’t even contemplate becoming councillors because they have families and bills to pay.’
“And succession planning in this game must be a horrendous situation – how can we plan something based on a four-year term?” he asked.
The Executive Board voted unanimously to accept the committee’s recommendations.
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