MAKING ALLOWANCES
(Leader finds an £8K extra allowance for yet another Labour Councillor)
perhaps the last thing you might expect is for a cash strapped council to create a new committee with the primary purpose of giving an extra allowance to one of their councillorsNowadays, with all the media attention focussed on politicians allowances and expenses, perhaps the last thing you might expect is for a cash strapped council to create a new committee with the primary purpose of giving an extra allowance to one of their councillors. However, on the basis of evidence received, that is just what has happened in Torfaen.
 The reply from Torfaen County Borough Council to a freedom of information inquiry indicates strongly that the primary reason for forming the new Policy Co-ordination and Development Committee at the Annual Meeting on the 19th of May was in order to create an additional Chair with an allowance of £8,304 per annum. If the new position had not been created then the leader would have been in the embarrassing position of having to choose just one labour councillor who would be denied an SRA (Special Responsibility Allowance).
At the annual meeting, reported here, the leader and other top labour cabinet members denied stongly that this was the case, in response to an allegation by Cllr Veronica German. The minutes of the meeting are available here.
"One aspect of their preparation focussed on SRA’s and their distribution"
"They want the Chair to be paid an SRA "
However an email included as page 3 of the FOI reply (see below) from the Deputy Chief Executive, Paul Mathews says that during their AGM preparations, with just over a week to go, the leader (Bob Wellington) and Cllr Cunningham "focussed on SRA's and their distribution".
"To cut a long story short they want to take advantage of the demise of one O&S Committee to create a new Committee ..... They want the Chair to be paid an SRA (equivalent to an O&S Chair) but they do not want this Committee to be seen as an O&S Committee. "
"They asked me to come up with a terms of reference."Paul Mathews was asked to come up with "terms of reference" and it was he who decided to call the new committee "The Policy Co-ordination and Development Committee"
The email, to various officers including Richard Edmunds (Ed), Head of Strategic Services, then continues "The Leader wants the Committee listed as part of the AGM as a Committee that he nominates the Chair of. This suggests to me clearly that the Committee needs to be established and agreed by Council (and this needs a report) prior to a Chair being nominated. Even if both actions take place at the AGM the sequence on the agenda will be critical — ie the Committee needs to be established earlier on the agenda than a Chair is nominated for it."
Richard Edmunds was then asked to prepare a suitable report for the Annual Meeting so that "It feels like a Committee that would need the personal attention of someone at Eds level."
This last phrase would indicate the desire for the SRA, or special responsibility allowance, should be at the £8,303pa level rather than the lower £5,534pa allowance. Last year every Labour councillor except the Deputy Mayor had an SRA of at least £8,000, and without the new committee Bob Wellington would have been in the embarrassing position of having only two supporters without an SRA , who would he choose to leave out? (Rumours are that Cllr Juliana Biggs, who I understand is Bob Wellingtons's neice, did not want a chair this year so that would have left only one.) Now with the creation of the new committee no Labour councillor who wants an SRA is without one. Now with the creation of the new committee no Labour councillor who wants an SRA is without one. (Nye James, last years Mayor, has been appointed Chair of the Audit Committee since the annual meeting.)
The full reply to the FOI request makes interesting reading; it includes various drafts of the report submitted to the annual meeting. In one draft the Legal Officer comments on this unusual method of bringing in a constitutional change, ie without the involvement of the Members Constitution Working Party. She wrote, " But (the Members Constitution Working Party) haven't been consulted on the establishment of it (this new committee) - which cuts across the remit of the WP (working party) which is being changed at council on the 14th of May."
It is also unclear whether the inclusion of an agenda item to effectively alter the constitution at an annual meeting of council is allowable under the constitution. I hope to ask a question about this at Public Question Time at the next council meeting on the 30th of June. (UPDATE this question was asked at the meeting and a reply was given, see full question and answer HERE. )
(Best practice recommends that Scrutiny Chairs should be appointed from the opposition and that there should never be a situation where over half of elected members are in receipt of additional allowances. Both these recommendations are contrary to the situation in Torfaen.)
report by Chris Harris 27th June 2009
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SEE FULL REPLY TO FOI (Freedom of Information) ENQUIRY HERE (lower quality copy, easy to download) or HERE (high res copy, takes ages to download)
The minutes of the 19th of May Annual Meeting are available HERE. See pages 8-24 for this particular item, with a short summary of the arguments for and against the formation of the committee. The rest of the minutes make interesting reading.
UPDATE 12th July 2009
At the Council Meeting on the 30th June, later in the meeting from Public Question Time, came Agenda Item 25
"Committee vacancies
To remind members of the vacancy on the Policy Co-ordination and
Development Committee and seek the necessary appointment"
During discussion on this Item Cllr Graham Smith condemned the formation of this committee and, armed with a copy of the email from Paul Mathews 11th May proceeded to quote from it. Councillor Smith said the email proved Councillor German was right and that the committee was dreamt up create the extra SRA. He said it proved Cllr German was right and that the committee was dreamt up create the extra SRA.
Cllrs Barnett and Mawby are both Cabinet members and also on the Members Constitution Working Party (MCWP) (Cllr Barnett is the chair) defended the recommendation of the leader to establish this committee; saying that something along these lines had been discussed on a number of occassions and that Cllrs Evans (Ind) and Paul Williams (Con), who are also members, must remember this. (There are no minutes kept of MCWP meetings, for the reason that it is a working party not a committee.) Cllrs Evans and Williams agreed, that at the request of the leader, a "cross-cutting" group had been discussed briefly but not in detail and no recommendations had been made.
Cllr Mawby quoted a number of references in minutes of council meetings and these are included here. He said that these clearly showed that the matter was not new. (I have looked closely at the references and they do little to support Cllr Mawby's argument, in some cases they emphasise that the matter needs to be discussed further. However you must read them and make up your own mind)
They each have "the leash of an SRA around their neck"Cllr Paul Williams said the emphasis at the MCWP was all about what the leader wanted and everything had to be taken back to him. He described the plaid/labour/independent members who supported the leader as each having "the leash of an SRA around their neck"
The Leader said that reports such as the one he submitted to the annual meeting were not his work alone and that the person who put in the FOI request (myself) did not understand how the council operated. It was noted that neither he nor anyone else defending the formation of this new committee attemped to explain the contents of the email from Paul Mathews, copied below.
I have asked for comments on this article from the Labour Leader, the Plaid Leader and the other two councillors who supported the formation of this commitee.
None of them have replied. I have emailed the Leader on the 3rd of July asking for comments on this report but have received no reply.
I have emailed Cllr Jeff Rees, as leader of the Plaid Councillors, who all voted for the new committee, but he has not replied.
I have also emailed Independent Cllrs Cathcart and Cunnington, who also voted for the new committee, for comments on this article and on the reply to my FOI request. They have not answered. (update) In a previous email, concerning his support for the new committee (but before the FOI information was available) Cllr Cunnington said
"I happen to think that the position is a reasonable one - and furthermore I hope its successful." "I happen to think that the position is a reasonable one - and furthermore I hope its successful. It's a pity that we live in a society with so many people actively willing projects to fail - but with that naive outlook, perhaps such consistently critical  people are not after all fit to be in control of a council, particularly when the very ones complaining, fail to hold together a simple thing like a coalition and in some cases fail to attend meetings. On that basis alone I am not surprised that the same people failing in imagination, would have equal difficulty in the concept of a cross part working committee since it involves participation and co-operation. " (full reply here)
Comments from other councillors involved in the matter as as follows.
 Cllr Paul Williams (Conservative who sits on MCWP)
"I was not part of any consideration of allocating a Special Responsibility Allowance (SRA) to a specific position. We all talk about 'task and finish groups' and Stuart and I listened to talk about there being a "spare SRA". "
Cllr Stuart Evans (Independent who sits on MCWP)
 "I stand by the comments I made at council that being we did have discussions around the possible splitting of a special responsibility allowance being shared between two Task and Finnish Chairs, but I cannot recall agreeing to a new Special responsibility Allowance being given to the Policy Coordinating comm. As you may be aware the Independents and other parties have constantly sought to save money in these areas and it is obvious that we should continue in that vein. As Cllr Williams pointed out at council all the discussions that we had on various recommendations had to be run by the leader for what seems like his approval?
It is a great shame that minutes were not taken as this would establish the facts behind this decision being taken, but as a working group there were no minutes taken and this leaves us in no mans land. But I know in my own minds eye I would never agree to this recommendation for the reasons I have mentioned above."
Cllr Veronica German (Liberal who made original accusation at the Annual Meeting)
"It is clear from the FOI request obtained by Chris Harris that in effect the cart came before the horse. Let's establish a committee in order to pay an allowance to the Chair, then.... oh we better think of something for this committee to do.
I would like to say I was shocked, but unfortunately I am not. When will this Labour administration learn? In a cabinet system the political direction should come from the cabinet - this is what they are paid for. The role of scrutiny committees is to scrutinise. To hold the cabinet to account and ensure that the policies they put in place are actually delivering the outcomes and giving value for money. This is how opposition councillors ensure the best for their constituents. Not by sitting on a committee that has been formed merely to allocate an extra allowance."
Cllr Brian Mawby (Labour Cabinet Member who is also on MCWP)
 "I am writing to confirm that I have sent you (separately) the references you requested. Please let me know if you require any further information on the extensive discussions over the 12 last months or more, held in Council and in the Constitution Working Party about the development of a member led body to take forward consideration of various cross cutting topics. "
Extracts from Council Minutes including Cllr Mawby's references are available here.
To Sum Up
From discussions at the meeting on the 30th of June there appears to be some agreement that some form of cross cutting committee or working party or task and finish group was discussed at the MCWP some time ago, but according to members of that committee (Independent Stuart Mathews and Conservative Paul Williams) it wasn't discussed in detail or agreed. Also if it had been agreed the legal officer, who is the lead officer on the MCWP would not have written, as a note on one draft of the report " But (the Members Constitution Working Party) haven't been consulted on the establishment of it (this new committee) - which cuts across the remit of the WP (working party) which is being changed at council on the 14th of May." (ie before the Annual Meeting). Even Cllr Mary Barnett (chair of the MCWP) and another member indicated that the matter had not been resolved.
Despite a long discussion on this at the council meeting on the 30th of June no-one was able or even attempted to explain the content of the 11th May email. The main defence against the accusation that the new committee might have been formed for the wrong reasons was that "something along these lines had been discussed some time ago and that it was not a last minute invention".
However the email of the 11th May is to my mind crystal clear as to the main purpose of the formation of the new committee and the haste in which the report to council was produced is evident from the dates on the emails.The instructions to write the report were given by Paul Mathews at 10:22 on the 11th of May. First draft report was circulated by 3:14 that afternoon. Richard Edmunds was in work before 7am the next day asking to speak to the leader about it. Bob Wellington had amended the report by 9:52am as then it was returned to Richard Edmunds for "tweaking". The tweaked report was sent to Lynda Willis at 1:36 pm, she had made a few changes and returned it 13 minutes later. It was included in the Agenda sent out the next day, the 13th. The instructions included the necessity to "write up" the importance of the commitee so that a higher SRA was justified.
Conclusion
Accepting that some form of collection of councillors to discuss some sort of issues had been in the leaders mind for some time, and that the MCWP had touched on it, it is clear that the preparation, timing, haste, lack of consultation and short cuts used to present this report at the Annual Meeting were because of the SRA involved. The willingness of all but one of those 23 councillors who receive an SRA to accept, without question, the recommendations of their leader (and paymaster), is sadly an indication of a much wider problem.
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Update 19th July, Peter Cathcart has replied saying "this committee was not the brain child of our council but more or less a directive from the Assembly if you look at welsh reports you'll find that they advised all authorities to form this committee." I have replied asking for more details of where I can read these reports. (Back)
Chris Harris 13th July 2009.
Comments from councillors of all groups welcomed.
MAKING ALLOWANCES Update 6th October 2009 (for original report click here)
Councillor gets paid an extra £519 per hour to chair meetings!
I attended the second meeting of the Policy Co-ordination and Development Committee held on the 30th of September. (For the agenda and minutes of the last meeting click here)
Chairing 8 meetings at say 2 hours each takes Clr Neil Mason 16 hours per year. £8304 for 16 hours makes the rate of pay £519 per hour. This is in addition to his basic allowance of £13,000 per year.
None of the councillors present had prepared for the meeting, they picked up their agendas at the meeting.There was no need for preparation of course, as the Agenda, Report and Powerpoint presentation on Residential Parking in Torfaen were simple and clear. All actions decided on were for the attention of officers, not the councillors present.
Chairman Cllr Neil Mason and the others will have nothing to do on this matter until the next meeting, in one months time. Neil Mason contributed to the meeting, but no more than any of the other four councillors present, and I felt that it would have been better chaired by Lynne Williams who was the officer quietly guiding Neil Mason through the meeting.
The only issue under discussion was set by the cabinet and it was, as was the last meeting, and for the next three meetings, about Residential Parking in Torfaen, something that affects every ward. The reports and presentations were padded out and though some good points came through the officers present were seeking guidance as to which direction to go with further research and which actions to recommend to the cabinet. At the same time the lead officer was gently but firmly guiding the members present as to what to decide and stressing that they were only making recommendations to the cabinet. The chair will not have even to make a presentation to council when the report on residential parking is completed, it will just be passed to cabinet for consideration.
The point I wish to make here is that there is absolutely no work (other than attending meetings) and no responsibility attached to this committee and very little chance of anything controversial arising to make chairing the meeting difficult. NO REAL DECISIONS ARE MADE!
Accepting that this parking issue is important I am sure there are better ways to guide the officers concerned in the preparation of this report. A members' seminar chaired by Lynne Williams would allow all members with an interest in this subject to contribute, and even members of the public. (Sitting there I could think of a number of relevant points to make, but I was only allowed there to observe.) A more efficient way would be to circulate each draft report to every member and invite comments, this would allow more of those interested to take part and save so much time.
After attending this meeting I can only continue to believe that that this committee was created to provide a way to pay Cllr Neil Mason an SRA without him being able to get "involved" with anything of substance.
Consider the following....
Councillor Neil Mason is paid an SRA (Special Responsibility Allowance) of £8304 per year to chair this committee, in addition to his standard allowance of more than £13,000 per year. The first meeting lasted 1 1/2 hours but his one lasted 2 hours. The meetings are to be held approximately every 6 weeks, 8 times a year (updated information).
So for chairing 8 meetings at say 2 hours each gives 16 hours per year. £8304 for 16 hours makes the rate of pay £519 per hour.
Cllr Graham Smith was unable to attend the meeting and sent his apologies.
The meeting dates for this year are as follows, they are usually held in Committee Room 2 and start at 9:30am. They are open to the public and it is well worth going if only to see what Committee Chairs do for their extra allowances.
30 September 2009 |
4 November 2009 |
16 December 2009 |
3 February 2010 |
10 March 2010 |
7 April 2010 |
2 June 2010 |
7 July 2010 |
Chris Harris 6th October 2009
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EMAIL.............(Back)