Pay rise of £350 per councillor proposed by independent panel with £18k overall price tag

Councillor pay is back on the agenda next week, with independent proposals to increase the basic salary for all members by £350 taking the role past the £14k basic mark for the first time.

In a sparse time for council meetings, members of the Democratic Services Committee will come together next week to discuss the proposed increase, which features as part of the draft Annual Report of the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales (IRPW).

The pay rate of councillors is not directly set by Wrexham Council, instead it is mainly taken out of their hands and dealt with via the IRPW – which was set up in 2008 to take such decisions from elected members.

Usually the outcomes of such Democratic Services Committee meetings are short statements from upset councillors and strongly worded letters written to the IRPW asking for such rises to cease.

As well as the basic pay some councillors claim expenses, and back in June we examined the claim file page by page to discover who was claiming what, and found one councillor claiming to visit his own ward.

Previously the IRPW have recommended to increase the pay of ‘senior’ councillors, such as Executive Board Members, however this year they are not as it is explained, “Such members received an uplift in last year’s annual report.” As all such senior councillors are still councillors they do get the £350 basic rise, taking the Leader of the Council to £49,450 , Deputy Leader £34,950 and Executive Board members £30,450 .

There has been calls to reduce the number of Executive Board members to help make savings at the council, which is facing a grim financial position, starkly outlined as having ‘no money in the bank‘ by its Chief Executive earlier this year.

The reduction in Executive Board membership has been reduced for now with Cllr Bill Baldwin ‘voluntarily stepping down’ pending the result of an investigation into his sharing of ‘racist’ Facebook posts (more here). It is unclear if that means the renumeration for that role has been paused, however Cllr Baldwin is expected at the Democratic Services Committee meeting so some clarity could be given there.

Overall the new proposals will cost the tax payer £18,200 , unless the raise is offset by council cuts or revenue raising in other ways. The increase proposed equates to a 2.5% base raise and would take effect from April 2020.

The IRPW explain the payment rise, “The Panel has consistently expressed its view that maintaining the democratic values of local governance cannot be cost free. Members of local authorities (including co-opted and appointed members) are there to represent the interests of local people, undertake the governance of local communities, and secure appropriate value for money public services for local tax-payers through effective scrutiny for which they are accountable to their community.

“These are significant and important tasks for members of the relevant authorities within the Panel‟s remit. Payments to members are made available to encourage a diversity of willing and able people to undertake local governance through their elected, appointed or co-opted roles.”

The topic of pay is usually debated more sensibly in Wrexham than up the road in Flintshire, where Wrexham.com was blocked on social media by a Cabinet Member for daring to ask a straight question, appearing to call us ‘evil’ and ‘vile’ for doing so. With Flintshire councillors then clocking they had pre-approved the budget that contained a line to cover their pay increase the councillors held and ‘advisory vote‘ on the matter.

In Wrexham we have long documented the eventual pay recommendations are always ‘noted‘ with the council usually quite unhappy if that is referred to as being voting ‘for’ a pay increase.

At the point of ‘noting’ the pay report in 2018 Cllr Davies said: “The Labour Group believe that in noting the report we are agreeing with the determinations made by the IRPW in their annual report. We do not and our views are very much aligned to those of the democratic services committee and their recommendations when they met in November 2018.

“The Labour Group will be voting against noting the report and ask that the lead member respectfully accepts our decision.”

The Labour Group were joined by Plaid Cymru and an unaligned councillor in voting against noting the report.

As we wrote at the time “…it still remains unclear what would happen if the report had a majority of councillors voting against noting it”.

The meeting on the 7th November will also consider a mid-year report on councillor ‘Development’ workshops coordinated by the Council’s Workforce Development from 1 April 2019 to 30 September 2019. The attendance is also given in this document, however some councillors may have previously had training or the development sessions.

Sessions include Code of Conduct, Scrutiny Questionning Skills and ‘Preparing for Brexit’.

Top pic: If the proposals are carried out as they usually are, every councillor will get seven more of those.