Agenda item

Urgent Item of Business - Members' Allowances: Report of the Independent Remuneration Panel

Minutes:

8.1

The Lord Mayor (Councillor Sioned-Mair Richards) stated that Council Procedure Rule 26 states that “An item of business may be considered at a meeting of the Council as a matter of urgency, where it has not been possible to give five clear working days’ notice, on the recommendation of the Chair, but the reason for such urgency must be recorded in the minutes”. 

 

 

8.2

The Lord Mayor stated that it was proposed that the Council considers the recommendations made by its Independent Remuneration Panel in relation to the introduction of a new Special Responsibility Allowance within the Members’ Allowances Scheme.  The Independent Panel met three working days prior to the publication of the agenda for this meeting, and this had not provided sufficient time for officers to complete the necessary liaison with all the political groups on the Council prior to the publication of the agenda.   To not deal with the matter as an urgent item of business at this meeting would delay the business for more than two months, until the next scheduled Council meeting.

 

 

8.3

The Lord Mayor added that a report on this matter had been produced and was circulated to all Members of the Council on 27th February 2023 and had been published on the Council’s website. Copies of the report were available at the meeting.

 

 

8.4

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: On the motion formally moved by Councillor Dianne Hurst and formally seconded by Councillor Martin Phipps, that this Council, in accordance with the details set out in the report of the Interim Director of Legal and Governance now submitted and as recommended by its Independent Remuneration Panel, approves the introduction of:-

 

 

 

(a)      a Special Responsibility Allowance (SRA) for the Chair of the Health Scrutiny Sub-Committee at Band C (£7,803 per annum)and that the allowance be backdated to the start of the Municipal Year 2022/23; and

 

 

 

(b)      an SRA at Band C (£7,803 per annum) for the Chair of any additional Sub-Committees that are established, subject to the requirement that no Councillor shall be entitled to receive more than one payment by way of an SRA as detailed in The Local Authorities (Members Allowances) (England) Regulations 2003.

 

 

 

 

 

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