Issue - meetings

Report of the Assistant Chief Executive

The Assistant Chief Executive introduced her report which had been circulated with the agenda. She gave apologies on behalf of the chair of the Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) who had intended to be present at the meeting but had been called away on urgent business.

She explained that this year the panel had convened to carry out a full review required every four years under legislation.  The IRP had been made fully aware of the council’s budget situation and had taken this into account when making their recommendations which were set out in section 5.1 of the report.

The Leader of the Council thanked the panel for their work on members’ allowances which he acknowledged was a difficult and controversial issue.  His inclination was to accept the recommendations and he also advised Members that as part of the budget process, his Cabinet members would be accepting a voluntary reduction in their Special Responsibility Allowances (SRAs).

Councillor Surgenor and Councillor Fletcher, speaking as chair and vice-chair of Planning Committee respectively, were pleased that the IRP had acknowledged the responsibilities of both the chair and vice-chair and noted the recommendations for the related increases in their SRAs.   However in view of the current budget situation they advised that although they wished the increases to be approved in the overall scheme, it was their intention to request that they personally did not accept any increases in their SRAs.

Another member referred to the recommendation regarding provision of a laptop or VPN link for every member that required it. He requested that the Council chamber and committee rooms were rewired so that members could bring their laptops into meetings.  This would result in considerable savings in printing committee papers and would therefore be a very green initiative.

Another member pointed out that a number of members did not have a council laptop and the proposal would be unfair to those who were not computer literate and therefore the previous suggestion was not relevant to the recommendations.

Upon a vote the recommendations of the IRP were agreed unanimously.

Resolved that:

1. The recommendations set out in the IRP report and summarised in part 5 of the covering report be adopted and the Assistant Chief Executive Council be authorised to implement any necessary changes to the scheme of allowances
   
   
2. The Borough Solicitor and Monitoring Officer be authorised to make any necessary changes to Council’s constitution.