Agenda item

The Monitoring Officer submitted a report detailing the recommendations of the Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) following its recent review of the Members’ Allowances Scheme. The council appointed the IRP earlier in the year to consider Members’ allowances as a statutory requirement of the Local Government Act 2000. The Panel last carried out a comprehensive review in 2011 and advised then that a further comprehensive review should take place in 2015.

Professor Steve Leach who chaired the panel attended Council to present the panel’s recommendations.

The IRP recommended increases to the Basic Allowance and all the Special Responsibility Allowances (SRAs), apart from the SRA’s payable to the Leader of the Council, the Deputy Leader of the Council and to the Leader of the Opposition. The panel’s report also recommended the introduction of two new SRAs for the Vice Chairs of Appeals and Regulatory and of the Planning Committee and the discontinuation of the SRA’s for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and for the Cabinet member without portfolio if that position was held by the Leader of the Opposition.

RESOLVED –

1.   That the recommendations of the Independent Remuneration Panel are accepted in full and implemented from 1 April, 2016.

2.   That the Independent Remuneration Panel’s report be published as set out in paragraph 7 of the officer’s report.

3.   That Full Council expresses both its appreciation and thanks to the members of the Independent Remuneration Panel for the thorough and efficient way in which they carried out the review.

4.   That the application of the average level of change in the NJC staff pay award for spinal column points 35-40 as the basis for the annual increase in members allowances shall not be valid after 31st December 2019, unless the Council has before then sought a further recommendation from its Independent Remuneration Panel on their application in this scheme