Independent Remuneration Panel

The Independent Remuneration Panel:

• is made up 5 people
• meets on a regular basis to discuss councillors’ allowances

No one on the panel is a councillor or council employee.

What the panel does

The Independent Remuneration Panel reviews the allowances scheme which includes:

• the councillors’ basic allowance
• the special responsibility allowance
• childcare and dependant carer allowances
• travel and subsistence payments and the circumstances under which they are paid
• co-opted members’ allowances (co-opted members are people who are not councillors but are invited to sit on certain council committees)

The panel bases any recommendations it makes by:

• looking at a large amount of data to set the scheme within a national and regional context
• comparing against other local authorities
• interviewing councillors
• looking at examples of good practice

The panel also meets individual councillors to discuss how the scheme is working.

The panel may be asked to review allowances for town and parish councillors as well as other reviews such as consideration of the mayoral allowance.

Recent panel review

At its full council meeting on Thursday 24 February 2022, the council agreed all the recommendations received from an Independent Remuneration Panel.

The Panel made recommendations in respect of the scheme for the payment of allowances to councillors due to be implemented from 1 April 2022.

The council made the final decision of what changes would be made and agreed that:

• the amount paid to the Chair of Licensing and Safety Committee would be reduced from £5,626 to £4,343
• the amount paid to the Vice-Chair of Licensing and Safety Committee would be reduced from £553 to £434 
• the amount paid to the Chair of Governance and Audit Committee would be increased from £2,201 to £2,895
• the loss of earnings payment for Members appointed to the Independent Education Appeals Panels would be increased to £61 for a period not exceeding 4 hours and £122 for a period between 4 and 24 hours
• the childcare maximum hourly rate would be set at the National Living Wage and the claim form will be amended so that care staff can declare they do not live in the claimant’s household rather than providing their home address
• if driving a hybrid or electric vehicle when claiming mileage for travel outside of the borough then the HMRC mileage rates would apply
• all allowances would be updated annually in line with the annual percentage pay increase that the council’s staff receive and rounded to the nearest pound (for example, Basic Allowance, SRAs, Co-optees’ Allowances, Civic Allowances and payments to Members of Independent Education Panels) 
• out of council area mileage would be indexed to HMRC AMAP rates
• other travel and subsistence would be updated in line with officers rates
• the maximum hourly rates for Dependents Carers Allowance would be indexed to the National Living Wage (childcare) and the council’s hourly rate for a Home Care Assistance (care of other dependants)
• the proposed changes would be implemented from 1 April 2022