Proposal over cash allowances rejected by council

CHESHIRE East Council has turned down a proposal which would have allowed councillors to claim two special responsibility allowances.

At present councillors can only claim one special responsibility allowance (SRA).

The Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) had recommended this be changed so an individual councillor could claim a maximum of two – for example, if they chaired a committee and were vice chair of another.

This proposal was backed by Cheshire East’s corporate policy committee last month, but last week it was narrowly refused at full council by 35 votes to 33, with six councillors abstaining.

The decision comes just a couple of weeks after Councillor Craig Browne revealed he was standing down as deputy leader and chair of the highways committee because he couldn’t afford to stay in the roles.

He receives an allowance for his leadership role but nothing for having chaired highways for five years.

Coun Browne told full council: “It’s about paying people for the role they are already fulfilling.”

“If a role prevents you from being able to go out and earn a full-time salary, as being leader or deputy leader does, then that role needs to pay a full-time salary in itself.”

Council leader Sam Corcoran said: “There are some councillors who do rely on their allowances, some councillors who have given up work in order to do the roles that they do for the council.

“As council leader, I don’t want to be losing good councillors because they cannot afford to give up other work to take on another council role.”

But other councillors disagreed. Coun Nicola Cook said: “When Cheshire East Council moved to a committee structure, it did so to ensure that decision-making was not centralised in a small cabinet of councillors.

“The payment of two SRAs effectively incentivises a small group of councillors to undertake more than one role. This, in my view, undermines the decisionmaking.”

Coun Liz Wardlaw, a former deputy leader of Cheshire East under the previous Conservative administration, said: “I’m in full agreement that the job is hard and that, in fact, we probably are under remunerated for it, but two allowances to one councillor doesn’t make sense. Spread the load.”

The council also voted to freeze councillor allowances for this financial year and for there to be a full review of all member allowances by the new IRP.