A modest increase in Brent councillors' basic allowance

 

 

Debating the councillor renumeration proposals

There is always a faint air of embarrassment around the Council chamber when the issue of councillor allowances comes up at the Budget setting meeting of the Council. This year was no exception as councillors were required to vote on giving themselves a rise.

Allowances were introduced to ensure that the role of councillor was open to a wider range of people rather than just those with a high enough income or an independent income tenabling them to subsidise the role.

Some councillors have other employment in addition to being a councillor while others treat it as a full-time job.

A saving grace is that Brent has the Independent Renumeration Panel (IRP) to advise on  renumeration for London councillors. In fact the IRP in its report LINK advocated a higher basic allowance than that adopted by Brent Council (£15,960) against the Brent figure of £13,637 (up from £12,988). This is £649 extra a year for each of the 57 Brent councillors.

 

The IRP in its report said: 

[Our] research showed that basic allowances per annum in London are significantly lower than those paid in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The assessment of members’ allowances in the home nations is carried out by independent bodies whereas in England, the level of allowances is determined by the local authority members themselves. It has also become clear that allowances in many boroughs are considerably lower than remuneration received by workers in London with comparative levels of responsibilities and skills. This comparative contrast in remuneration is juxtaposed against increased workloads, time pressures, accountability, and financial pressures that councillors are presently having to manage. The Panel takes the view that it is important that there is a system of support in place that recognises the vital role that elected representatives play in local government and the full scale of their responsibilities. This support includes appropriate remuneration levels.

 

The Roberts commission considered a wide range of issues but at its heart were the key questions of: 1) how best to ensure that people from a wide range of backgrounds and with a wide range of skills are encouraged to serve as local councillors; and 2) how to ensure those who participate in and contribute to the democratic process should not suffer unreasonable financial disadvantage.

 

Within these broad considerations there can be no doubt that financial compensation or a system of allowances plays a crucial part in making it financially possible for local people to put themselves forward to take on the onerous responsibilities involved in being a councillor and indeed to continue to serve as one.

 

For this reason it is crucial that allowances for councillors across London are pitched at an appropriate level such that they make a major contribution in ensuring diverse and effective local representation. This 2023 review of Member allowances has aimed to take a step back and ensure that the recommended allowances are pitched such that they serve this crucial purpose.

 

We are clear that the Panel can only make recommendations and that each council must determine its own system and rates of allowances. However each council must have regard to our recommendations. We are concerned that a wide variation in the level of allowances between councils across London has evolved over the years.

 

Given that this year’s Panel review has been a significant stocktake and that we have made clear recommendations, with a clear rationale and for the important purpose described in this section, we strongly recommend that the findings of our review and the Panel’s position are adopted across London. This is at the heart of ensuring a healthy, vibrant and representative local government in the capital.

 

Having looked at various options, the Panel has concluded that the most appropriate approach is to determine the basic allowance as a proportion to the remuneration of the people councillors represent and has used the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) data, published by the Office for National Statistics as a basis of its calculation. The Panel has used the median wage for all London workers for this purpose. In 2022-23, this is £38,936.73 per annum. Based on a 37 hour week, and taking into account a 30% public service discount, (as has been the custom and practice) the Panel has determined that the recommended basic allowance should be £15,960.

On top of the basic allowance there are Special Responsibility Allowances (SRAs) for councillor roles on committees etc. The Brent proposl this year was that these remained unchanged except for members of the Licensing Committee and chairs of Brent Connects. As Cllr Georgiou pointed out at the Council meeting these have been significantly increased. The Council reports sets out the reasons for the proposed increase:

 

Over the last two and a half years, the number of Licensing Sub-committee meetings have averaged at 20 or more per year with each hearing lasting at least half a day. Serving on the Licensing Committee bears significant personal responsibility as the committee is quasi-judicial in nature. All members are expected to strictly adhere to the Licensing code of practise, with the failure to do so risking reputational damage to the council or the risk of legal proceedings. All members on the licensing committee are expected to regularly attend the Licensing Sub-committee as well as undertake regular training and development sessions provided by the council, in addition to site visits and other applicable work.

 

Similarly with the role of Chairs of the Brent Connects Area Consultative Forums and the increasing pressures on community resilience and power, these forums will be taking on a more developed role in the council, as part of our Borough Plan commitment to enabling communities and encouraging greater involvement at a neighbourhood level in council activities

As commented on previously on Wembley Matters SRAs are an area where a council leader can indulge powers of patronage. Their potential loss via removal from a post can keep a councillor in line.

 

 

Full list of allowances (Click bottom right corner for full page view)

 

Brent Councillors' allowances to rise by 4.04%

Thursday's Full Council meeting will consider increasing councillors' allowance by 4.04% in line with the National Joint Council  Government Services pay award.

 

Councillor's allowances are made up of 2 elements: a basic allowance for every councillor and an additional responsibility allowance when they take on a specific role (leadership, chair of committee etc). For the last couple of years only the basic allowance has been increased.

 

This year the proposal increases both as in the table below. In addition the second opposition group leader is given an annual allowance of £4,000 for the first time. (Click bottom right to enlarge)

 

 

The report on the proposal states:

The 2022, Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) for London Councils,  report recognises the importance of the role played by elected members not only in terms of their representational role but also given the increasing challenges and demands in managing the delivery of local services and on the allocation of financial resources. The report highlights the increasingly difficult and complex nature of choices and work faced by local councillors in terms of managing these challenges and increasing level of demand on services. In addition, reference is made to the growth in other public sector activities including community safety, increasing expectations for closer working with health services and the voluntary sector, as well the growing role of councillors acting as a point of information, advice and reassurance for local communities. The report also recognises the increasing expectations of the public in terms of access to their local councillors supported by the growth in digital connectivity, social media etc.

While conscious of the above, the review also takes account of the continuing
financial challenges faced by local authorities. Having taken account of adjustments made in accordance with annual local government pay settlements over previous years, this led to the recommendation of a Basic Allowance set at £12,014. The current basic allowance payable under Brent’s Members Allowance Scheme is already comparable at £12,484.

 

The report from the Independent Panel for the Remuneration of Councillors in London reiterated its previous recommendation that members’ allowances should be uplifted annually in line with the pay settlement for employees and are therefore recommending that boroughs also use the 4.04% uplift for their member allowances. It is, however, up to each borough to determine the allowances it pays to members. On this basis, members are therefore asked to consider (following consultation with the Constitution Working Group) applying an uplift of 4.04% across the Basic and Special Responsibility Allowances within the Members Allowance Scheme for 2023/24. If this were to be agreed, it would mean an increase in the Basic Allowance from £12,484 to £12,988 (a difference of £504 for each of the 57 councillors).

 

Overall the proposals  would increase the total councillors’ allowance costs by £46,143. This, however,  would be affected by any role changes made at the Annual Meeting of the Council. You will have read the Conservative budget proposal that the 4.04% rise should not be implemented and that the Cabinet should be reduced by two members and the roles redistributed to the remaining Cabinet members.

 

 

Discomfort as Brent councillors debate an increase in their own allowances

The debate comes just after the vote on the Local Plan

Last week's Full Council approved a Council Tax rise of 3.99%, numerous cuts and a rise in the councillor's basic allowance of 2% as recommended by the independent allowance review body.

Voting on your own renumeration is always an uncomfortable experience and this was no exception. As you will see in the video Cllrs Abdirazak Abdi, Robert Johnson and Anton Georgiou did not feel justified in taking the increase in the light of the Council Tax rise and many residents' difficult financial position.

Others argued that allowances had been fought for to give everyone, not just the well off, the ability to stand for Council and serve residents.

The livestream video does not show councillors as the vote was taken and it was not a 'recorded vote' when councillors' names are called out by the CEO like a school register and their vote recorded. I cannot hear the for and against vote on the video but think I heard 6 absentions.

There are quite a few barbs in the speeches which are likely to mean little to the public but seem to relate to levels of attendance at council meetings, the suggestion that some councillors are privileged and so can afford not to take the increase and allegations of 'grandstanding.'

Tory opposition leader on Brent Council to get £2,000 rise

A report to Full Council recommends that the leader of the 3 member Conservative Group on Brent Council gets a Special Responsibility Allowance rise from £6,000 to £8,000. The recommendation is based on the average provided in comparable London boroughs. The allowance is in addition to the basic councillor allowance.

Quick quiz question for readers: (answers at foot of page)

1) Who is he?

2) What has he achieved in holding the Council to account?

The biggest rise is reserved for the Chair of the Audit and Standards Committee, Cllr Aslam Choudhary,  (who also serves as Vice Chair of the Audit and Standards Advisory Committee. A rise to match similar roles in other London boroughs is recommended that will increase his allowance from £1,000 to £5,000.

All councillors' allowances will be increased by 2% in line with the Local Government Pay Inflation Settlement.

The Report reminds councillors that the  2018 Report recommended that allowance be set 'at a level that enables people to undertake the role of councillor while not acting as an incentive to do so. It is equally important, as acknowledged, that there should not be a financial disincentive.













ANSWERS

1) Reg Colwill
2)

Brent councillors to get £1,800 allowance rise - some responsibility allowances reduced

Brent Full Council will be recommended to approve a rise in each councillor's basic allowance from £10,201 to £12,000 at the Annual Meeting on Monday. The decision, based on an independent review, was held back until after the local elections.

Last year the total paid out on allowances was £1,135111.91. In addition to the basic allowance some members are paid a Special ResponsibilityAllowance (SRA)  with only one payable to any one member.

There are constitutional plans set out on Full Council papers that involve the merging of the Standards and Audit Committees into one, the setting up of a Licensing Committee and a proposal to abolish the Equalities Committee (on the grounds that the Pavery Report has been successfully implemented).

The main SRAs for the leadership team are unchanged and there are some reductions.  Planning Committee members will be paid an SRA of £2,177 (reduced from £3,266), Chairs of Brent Connect forums  reduced from £4,911 to £1,250, Principal Oppositiom leader allowance reduced from £13,042 to £6,000, Chief Whip of the ruling group reduced from £5,639 to £4,000, the Mayor reduced from £9,181 to £7,141 and Deputy Mayor  from £7,141 to £3,234.

The Chair of the new Licensing Committee will be paid an SRA of £3,234 and th Chair and Vice Chair of the merged Audit and Standards Committee £1,500.

Full details HERE (See Appendix 2, pages 71-71)

Brent Council Meeting tonight could be lively...

There are a number of issues on the agenda at Brent's Full Council Meeting meeting tonight that could make it more lively than the usual ritualistic affair.

A 3.99% rise in Council Tax forms part of the budget along with cuts in youth provision that have rather late in the day led to protests by the Mosaic and Granville Youth Centres. The Council retained the funding of the Youth Parliament but cut the actual youth service. A bit like closing a hopsital but keeping the Patents' Forum.

Buried in the budget report is a statement  that I passed on to South Kilburn residents last week and that was picked up by James Powney on Sunday LINK

The South Kilburn Regeneration programme has slipped behind schedule in 2015/16. There is a masterplan review of South Kilburn Regeneration; this means it is being fundamentally reviewed to determine how best to deliver the programme and realise benefits of regeneration for South Kilburn and for its businesses and residents. This review will reconsider the fundamental approach, including whether it is better for the council to retain the South Kilburn Housing Assets, or continue to dispose of them.

Clearly this has far reaching repercussions and Kilburn councillors may well want further detail. James Powney suggests this is a matter for the Scrutiny Committee but an investigation into the South Kilburn regeneration is already supposed to be on their agenda. South Kilburn resident Pete Firmin made a presentation to the Committee in December LINK

The proposal to have two Scrutiny Committees with allowances for each member, as well as the introduction of conferences expenses and a 1% rise in the basic councillor allowance are likely to be controversial.
 
The removal of the deputy leader's allowance from the Brondesbury Park Conservatives and the allocation of a leader's allowance to the Kenton Conservatives will lead to some bitter exchanges between the two groups to the glee of Labour councillors.

Proposals to change the structure of Full Council Meetings  LINK deserve serious consideration but may not escape the usual Punch and Judy politics.

Councillors' allowances to be increased at next Council meeting plus who will Labour appoint as Tory leader?

There will be a Full Brent Council meeting on September 8th, only the second since the elections in May.  The first proved controversial with constitutional changes voted through and then later backbench concern about what had been agreed - especially the reduction in Scrutiny committees.

The meeting was noteworthy also for the public split in the Conservative opposition with the three Tories in Brondesbury Park declaring independence from those in Kenton.

That issue will rear its head again when the Council (56 Labour, 6 Tories and one Lib Dem) vote to decide which of the two Tory factions should be the Principal Opposition Group for the purposes of allowances. Perhaps Central Office will mediate before they expose themselves to ridicule.

Fiona Ledden's paper on allowances that will be put before the Council includes increases in allowances but Ledden claims that they remain some of the lowest in London and below those recommended by an independent review.

The recommendations (previous allowance in brackets) include:

The basic allowance for all 63 councillors £10,000  (£7,974)

Additional Allowances

Following the replacement of the Executive by the smaller Cabinet, the two allowances saved will be shared amongst the Cabinet members £18,711 (£14,969)

The Leader of the Council £38,964 (£35,222)

Deputy Leader £28, 397 (£24,655)

Chief Whip majority party £5,473 (no change)

Two additional Deputy whips for the majority party are proposed £2,113 where their majority exceeds 50%.   Previously there were whip allowances of £5,473 for the other two parties. They appear to have been abolished.

Group leader of the Principal Opposition  £12,658 (no change but no deputy principal oppositon group leader allowance.)

Principal Opposition  Group Allowance £2,113 (n/a)

There are a number of other allowances, many of which remain unchanged,  that can be found on the Council website HERE

There are clearly debatable issues such as the additional whips for the Labour group but as someone who has been  a trade unionist since the age of 16 I am not going to fulminate against these proposals. It is right that people should get the rate for the job and carried out properly these are very responsible positions.

However, as an electorate we know that there is varying performance by councillors in terms of the effectiveness of their casework, including basic tasks such as responding to correspondence and attending surgeries, as well as issues around Cabinet and Committee members making sure they have read and understood the relevant papers thoroughly.

Furthermore there have been problems around attendance records at Council meetings in the past and we deserve our councillors' full-time commitment to their job.

Most workers go through appraisal procedures and teachers are now subjected to performance related pay. Perhaps councillors should be accountable to an annual ward citizens' panel between elections to ensure that they are giving value for money?

That is why the Recall proposal of the Make Willesden Green Campaign in the local elections, which the Green Party alone of the parties contesting the election supported, was so important. 

Above views and any responses to comments are in a personal capacity. The Brent Green Party has not yet discussed these proposals. 

Kitcat calls for 'legal, fair and affordable' suggested solutions to Brighton pay cut crisis

I posted an item on the situation in Brighton and Hove where the local Green Party and Caroline Lucas MP have condemned the Council's pay modernisation which involves a pay cut for a minority of workers and increases for others.

Jason Kitcat, Convenor of the Green Group of councillors has responded to the criticism with this article on the Liberal Conspiracy website:

My colleagues and I on Brighton and Hove Council have led this country’s first Green local authority since May 2011, although as a minority administration we can (and do) get over-ruled by Labour and the Tories when they choose to work together.

There’s much we’ve done over the last two years which has been widely welcomed including introducing the Living Wage, building more affordable homes, protecting third sector funding, becoming the world’s first One Planet City and progressing a City Deal, but it’s fair to say that staff pay has been the most controversial issue we have had to deal with.

We inherited a deeply flawed and muddled pay and allowances structure from previous administrations, and indeed from predecessor defunct local authorities.

The lowest paid were not getting a living wage and the work on resolving single status for employee take-home pay (regardless of gender) was incomplete.

The Tory-Lib Dem cuts to local government have also hit us hard: in fact, they are the second steepest faced by any council of our type. Furthermore, we cannot raise Council Tax beyond a level Labour or the Tories would support. Although senior management pay is down to its lowest level for over ten years, the budget is exceptionally tight.

So we’re consulting on a proposal that will bring in fair pay and allowances for all who work for the council.
Building on the Living Wage we’ve already introduced for the lowest paid, we now are seeking to complete the final step of ensuring single status for all council employees.

It is very clear that this is not about budget savings and not about ‘austerity’. In fact, based on the offer under consultation, the pay bill is likely to go up slightly. Which other Council in the country can claim that?
What is the offer then? The offer includes three key aspects:

1) A new fair and simple set of allowances which is easy to understand and helps the council meet the needs of our citizens.With these new allowances 90% of staff will see very little or no change at all in their take home pay. Of those that do, the majority will actually see an increase and a minority will see some detriment. Most of those seeing detriment will, it is estimated, lose less than £25 per week. I recognise even that is a lot to some people, but not the headline figures being used by some individuals.

2) Anyone who is unfortunately suffering detriment will be generously compensated for that loss with a lump sump payment. For example someone losing between £1,001 and £1,250 a year is proposed to receive £3,550 in one-off compensation.

3) We are keen to provide new opportunities for staff. We hope that, if agreed at a future committee, changes like Bank Holiday working can increase opportunities for waste and recycling staff whilst improving services to the city by eliminating changing collection days every time there is a Bank Holiday.

Some staff will regrettably see allowances reduced, but we can see no legal and affordable way merely to increase everyone’s pay up to those levels – and we therefore propose a lump sum to compensate those staff, worth very roughly about three years’ worth of any reduction.

We have to resolve these allowances now. To do so without any detriment to any member of staff would sadly be totally unaffordable, even with Council Tax rises that would certainly not be supported by Labour and Conservative councillors.

I know this process has been controversial and could have been communicated better. Some colleagues locally have concerns about it, to say the least.

I would therefore welcome suggestions from them, as well as from staff and the unions, on how to improve these proposals in any way which is legal, fair and can be afforded within the tight budget limits effectively set by the government as well as our Labour and Tory opposition.

—
For more on the proposals, see Jason’s blog here.
Jason Kitcat is a Green City Councillor. He is writing in his capacity as Convenor of the Green Group of councillors on Brighton & Hove City Council.