Council is requested to consider the recommendation from the Constitution and Standards Committee on 23 June 2022.

The minute extract and report are attached.

The first item requiring approval was in relation to the recommendations of the Independent Remuneration Panel to amend the Members Allowance Scheme in respect to the Special Responsibility Allowances for Group Leaders and Basic Allowance for Members.

Councillor Tony Cox moved and Councillor Paul Stuart seconded the recommendations of the Constitution and Standards Committee of 23 June 2022 with regard to the report of the Independent Remuneration Panel.

The Civic Mayor put on record his thanks on behalf of the Council for the work of the Independent Remuneration Panel. The motion was put and it was –

Resolved (55:1) (1 abstention) – That the Members Allowance Scheme be amended in respect to the level of Special Responsibility Allowance for Group Leaders and the Basic Allowance for all Members, as detailed in the report, effective following July 2022 Council Meeting.

The Head of Democratic and Member Services introduced the report of the Director of Law and Governance, which provided an update in respect to the work of the Independent Remuneration Panel and  requested the Committee to refer to Council for decision a proposed change to the Members Allowances Scheme in respect to the Special Responsibility Allowances (SRA) for Group Leaders and in respect to the Basic Allowance for Members both to be implemented from the 2022 municipal year.

Members attention was drawn to a number of updates that had been omitted from the published report, namely:

Paragraph 3.1 of the report – The Independent Remuneration Panel had also met on 14 July and 29 July 2021.

Paragraph 3.3 of the report – the first bullet point should have read: “In the event of political groups having an equality in number of members, the total of the combined leaders’ allowances should be shared between the group leaders, i.e. if there were two groups with the same number of members, the leaders of those groups would each receive 50% of the combined total for leaders of those groups.  The same principle would apply to deputy group leaders allowances.  However, this would not apply if one of the group leaders or deputy group leaders was the Leader of the Council or Deputy leader of the Council.”

Additional information regarding the travel and subsistence payments was to be added to the report under Paragraph 3.5: “The Panel further recommended that travel and subsistence allowances should align with the scheme for officers. This would result in a minor update to section 8.7 of the scheme as follows:

·  Standard Rate - £148

·  Central London/LGA Annual Conference Rate - £185”

It was agreed by assent that these changes would be incorporated into the report to be referred to Council.

Peter Bounds, Chair of the Independent Remuneration Panel was in attendance and explained the Panel’s rationale for the recommendations they had made.

The Chair thanked Peter and the other members of the Independent Remuneration Panel for the work they had done.

On a motion by Councillor Tony Cox, seconded by Councillor Julie McManus it was –

Resolved –

1.  That the recommendations of the Independent Remuneration Panel to amend the Members Allowance Scheme in respect to the level of Special Responsibility Allowance for Group Leaders and the Basic Allowance for all Members, as detailed in the report (including the minor updates reported at the meeting) be referred to Council for approval.

2.  That if Council are minded to adopt the recommendations of the Independent Remuneration Panel, the new scheme to become effective following the July 2022 Council Meeting.