Members' Allowances and Expenses

For details of Stratford-on-Avon District Council's Independent Remuneration Panel, please see below.

Background

The council is required under the Local Authorities (Members' Allowance) (England) Regulations 2003 and subsequent amendments to establish and maintain an Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) to review and make recommendations to the council on the range and levels of remuneration for elected members.

Under the regulations, the council is required to undertake a full review at least every four years. However, it has recently decided to undertake "light touch" reviews each year with a full review every fourth year.

Membership of the Panel

There are five members of the panel:

• Dr Declan Hall, a former academic at the Institute of Local Government, University of Birmingham, with extensive experience of public sector member allowance reviews across the UK. Dr Hall has also held several appointments, most recently appointed by the Minister for Local Government and Government Business in Wales to the Expert Group on Diversity in Local Government; see "On Balance: Diversifying Democracy in Local Government in Wales 2014."
• Jeremy Gould, a specialist public sector consultant and non-executive director of an NHS Trust.
• Nigel Boswell, a retired quantity surveyor with significant experience as a magistrate within the county.
• Patricia Chelley-Steeley, a Professor of Finance at the University of Birmingham Business School, who has experience of HR, salaries, benchmarking, research etc.
• Neal Hounsell, who has extensive experience at senior level in local government and as a Best Value Inspector with the Audit Commission and CPA Inspection Team working with Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission.

Terms of Reference

The role of the Independent Remuneration Panel is to make recommendations to the council about allowances to be paid to councillors.

The council must have regard to the recommendations and advice of the panel in determining the level of allowances.

Latest Report of the Panel

The Panel met again on 23 September 2020 for a light touch review of the Council's Scheme of Members' Allowances and was reported to the Council meeting on 19 October 2020.