Explained: the North Yorkshire councillors’ pay rise

North Yorkshire councillors voted to increase their allowances by 10% this week .

The vote, which was held at a full council meeting in Northallerton, proved contentious with some members of the council claiming it was immoral due to the ongoing cost of living crisis.

Others argued that the increase amounted to a “real terms pay cut”.

It represented an ongoing debate over how elected councillors should be paid for their service.

Here is what you need to know about how North Yorkshire councillors are paid

How are councillors paid?

Councillors on North Yorkshire Council are not paid a salary. They are paid an allowance, which each elected member can decide whether to accept all or part of.

Some offer to donate parts of their allowance to charity.

Read more:

The purpose of the allowance is to cover expenses which come with the commitments of a councillor, such as time and travel to meetings for council business on behalf of their constituents.

They are not paid a salary like council officers and directors.

How much is the allowance?

Prior to this week’s vote, all 90 councillors were offered a basic allowance of £15,550.

If a councillor has a special responsibility, such as the leader of the council or a cabinet member, then they are paid an additional allowance.

For example, the leader of North Yorkshire Council has a special responsibility allowance of £39,654 and the chair of the council receives an additional £12,142.

Who decides how much the allowance is?

An independent renumeration panel meets every year to review councillors’ allowances.

The panel, which consists of three members, publicises its recommendations.

Those recommendations are then discussed by the council’s executive before going before a full council meeting to be voted on.

Why did councillors vote to increase their allowances?

On Thursday, a full council meeting of North Yorkshire Council voted to increase allowances by 10%.

It means the councillors’ annual basic allowance will be increased from £15,500 to £17,000.

There will be a two per cent increase in the special responsibility allowances paid, with the exception of sessional payments to chairs of the licensing sub-committees.

Panel chair Keith Trotter cited the increased workload caused by the creation of North Yorkshire Council, inflation and the cost of living as reasons for the recommendation.

However, Liberal Democrats voted against the recommendation on the grounds that there was a cost of living crisis and it would not be right to support the increase.

Other councillors, such as Cllr Andy Brown argued that it represented a “real terms pay cut” as it prevented working people from being able to become councillors.

Conservative Cllr Carl Les, leader of the council, said the independent panel had considered the current cost of living when making the decision to recommend the rise.

North Yorkshire councillors back giving themselves 10% pay increase

Councillors on North Yorkshire Council have voted to increase their pay by £1,500 a year.

North Yorkshire Council‘s independent remuneration panel recommended the 90 elected councillors’ annual basic allowance should be increased from £15,500 to £17,000.

The 10% uplift, along with other increases for councillors with special responsibility allowances, will mean council tax payers have to foot an extra £145,000 each year.

Councillors backed the move at a full council meeting in Northallerton today.

Cllr Felicity Cunliffe-Lister, a Liberal Democrat who represents Masham and Fountains division on the council, said at the meeting today that she would not support the increase.

She said:

“May I remind everyone that we are in a cost of living crisis. Awarding ourselves a pay rise at this time is indefensible.”

However, Cllr Carl Les, leader of the council, said the independent panel had considered the current cost of living when making the decision to recommend the rise.

“The independent panel know that there is a cost of living crisis. They have factored that in to their deliberations.”

Cllr Les added that it was up to individual councillors as to whether they accepted all or some of the allowance available to them.

Read more:

Panel chair Keith Trotter cited the increased workload caused by the creation of North Yorkshire Council, inflation and the cost of living as reasons for the recommendation.

The £1,500 increase in the annual basic allowance from £15,500 to £17,000 will result in an increase in the total annual amount paid of £135,000.

Meanwhile, the two per cent increase in the special responsibility allowances paid, with the exception of sessional payments to chairs of the licensing sub-committees, will result in an increase in the total annual amount paid of £10,514.

North Yorkshire Council was created on April 1 to replace the eight county, borough and district councils in the biggest reorganisation of local government in the county since 1974.

Councillors volunteer for their roles so they are not officially paid but receive an annual basic allowance, which according to the panel compensates for their time and “conscientious fulfilment of duties”.

Councillor says ‘morally wrong’ to dispute allowances recommendation

A senior county councillor has said It would be morally wrong for a council’s leadership to dispute the findings of an independent panel recommending how much elected members of a new unitary local authority should be paid.

A full meeting of North Yorkshire County Council next month will decide whether to accept setting annual allowances for the 90 elected members of the new council at £15,500.

However, the figure would be a fall for those dual councillors who currently sit on both the county council and district authorities.

The decision follows the county council’s executive supporting the findings of the five-member panel which concluded the workload of councillors would increase by about 25% in serving the unitary authority compared to the county council, which last year paid councillors a basic allowance of £10,316.

The panel, members of which have no connection to the council, said it had also taken inflation and allowances paid in comparable unitary authorities into account when making the recommendation.

The panel said it recognised the economic challenges being faced within the community and had been guided by and taken into consideration the average pay awards in the public sector of four to five per cent.

The panel’s report states: 

“Councillors volunteer for their roles. They are not remunerated at a commercial rate for their time, as if they were employees. However, the allowances should not be set at a level which acts as a disincentive to conscientious performance of duties, or which does not reflect the considerable time commitment required for the role.

“It is important that the council feels able to attract high quality candidates to stand as councillors, from a wide variety of backgrounds.

“There should also be no financial barrier to anyone who wishes to stand for election.”

Read more:

As the total cost of basic allowances paid over the last year to the county’s 319 county and district councillors is about £2m, the panel’s recommendation represents a saving of £636,000.

The issue is often among the most contentious decisions councillors are faced with and Cllr David Chance, executive member for corporate services, called for allowances to be set nationally in future.

Cllr Gareth Dadd, the authority’s deputy leader, told the meeting the panel had made its recommendation after taking evidence from elected members as well as from comparable local authorities across the country.

He said: 

“I don’t think it is morally right for us to set an independent panel up and not accept its recommendations.”

Cllr Dadd said elected members would not have to take their full allowances.

He said while people may have a view on how much of an allowance councillors should be given, in approving the panel’s recommendation for consideration by the full council, executive members had to decide whether what was being proposed was “clearly absurd”.

The Thirsk councillor added the panel’s recommendation was “within the realms of reasonableness” and that it would be a dangerous move for the executive effectively to suggest their own pay rates.

County councillors back 1.75% allowance increase

Councillors have overwhelmingly voted in favour of approving a pay increase for themselves after being told rejecting it could hamper improving diversity in favour of white, retired men on the authority.

A full meeting of Conservative-led North Yorkshire County Council saw 60 of its 72 members agree to a 1.75% uplift in their basic allowances to £10,316 from April. Two members abstained and two opposed the move.

The rise, which is below the national three per cent rate of inflation in September, had been recommended to the councillors by an independent panel, which concluded the increase was needed “to retain the balance between public duty and a realistic recompense for the time given up, plus commitment and responsibility in undertaking the role”.

It said despite an increase of almost 10% in councillors’ allowances since April 2017, 11 of the 16 comparable county councils paid their elected members more than North Yorkshire.

While the majority of North Yorkshire county councillors are close to or above retirement age, just 19 of its members are women.

Read more:

Independent Skipton Cllr Andy Solloway said while metropolitan and parish councils featured diverse membership, the incoming North Yorkshire authority was facing “the very real danger of it being 100% white, 90% male and 80% people of retirement age”.

To improve democratic representation, he called on the political groups to carefully select their candidates for the new authority.

The authority’s leader Cllr Carl Les said:

“No one should feel unable to stand for election for whatever reason. There should be no financial barrier to people standing for public office.”

He said while the overall cost of paying allowances to about 90 members of the new authority would be over and above the amount the county council was currently paying its elected members, that would be offset against district councils no longer having that expense.

Cllr Les called on the authority to accept the panel’s recommendation on the proviso that councillors could chose whether they took none, part or all of the 1.75% increase.

Leader of the authority’s Labour group Cllr Eric Broadbent told the meeting that with many North Yorkshire families struggling financially Labour members had decided to accept the increase and give it to the North Yorkshire local assistance fund.

He claimed if all elected members did the same it would generate money to bring struggling families out of poverty.

Fellow Labour councillor Tony Randerson added: 

“This is not a cheap political point, it is something we feel very strongly about and very sincerely about. For those people who are struggling it would be a massive help if this proposal could find favour.”

The meeting heard the council’s Stronger Communities executive member Cllr David Chance pledge that the local assistance fund was already funded sufficiently to ensure that anyone facing a crisis could be supported.

The authority’s finance boss Cllr Gareth Dadd said many councillors already forego their full allowances or donated part of it to charity “but do not feel the need to advertise it”.

Cllr Les concluded the Labour proposal presented a danger of binding the new authority. He added:

“We need diversity across the political spectrum and I do hope my party will play its part in delivering that diversity.”