I am a deputy member of the Standards Committee which is intended to maintain the highest standards of behaviour among members of the County Council. It is my view that such a committee should never vote along party lines because members of the committee should rely on their own judgement.
Sadly, that principle was broken at a recent meeting. The issue was remuneration of members and an independent Remuneration Panel had taken evidence and then made recommendations. The Standards Committee was to assess the recomendations and pass their comments onto full Council. It seemed to me that members should accept the Remuneration Panel’s recommendations unless they had very good reasons to disagree.
The first issue was just such a point: the Remuneration Panel had recommended that members pay should be tied to the Retail Prices Index which would give a rise of 5%. The Standards Committee, including me, disagreed and recommended that members pay should be related to the rate of pay in local government (giving a 3% rise). For legal reasons the relationship has to be assessed each year so the link cannot be automatic.
The Conservative members of the Standards Committee had prepared their position before the meeting and had prepared ammendments to the Remuneration Panel’s recommendations.
In particular, the Panel had recommended that the Chairman of the Standards Committee should not have a Special Responsibility Allowance. The Conservative group voted unanimously for a £5000 annual allowance for the Conservative chairman.
The Panel had recommended that the opposition spokesman on the Fire and Rescue Authority should have an allowance. The Conservative group voted unanimously that the Liberal Democrat spokesperson should not have an allowance.
We agreed unanimously that another post (filled by a Liberal Democrat) should not have an allowance because the Panel felt he should not.
I believe it is wrong, and a dangerous precedent, for members of a party group to prepare a party view on standards: party loyalties make it impossible to judge as duty requires and decisions which look partisan can only damage the Council. That damage occurs even when the decision is made in good faith, because it looks as if it was swayed by party loyalty.
In my view, the appropriate response would have been to ask the Remuneraton Panel to meet again and reconsider their recommendations. I believe the Council has been badly served by the way these issues were handled.