Craven District Council lay great store on being ‘Open, transparent, and accountable’ or so they say in the latest edition of ‘Your Craven.’
Surprisingly, some of them still won’t tell the electorate, those who pay their allowances and expenses, how they vote on important topics.
Even more surprisingly this applies to the council leader, Carl Lis.
One thing that councillors cannot hide, however, is the amount of money taxpayers contribute to their allowances.
At one time councillors didn’t receive allowances, only expenses. Expense claims are reasonable, people should not be out of pocket for serving their community, but allowances at Craven have seen some remarkable increases of late.
In 2000/1 the total paid was £31,805 for councillors’ allowances.
By 2004/5 this had risen to £156,100 - a five fold increase!
This huge increase seems to be in the process of being copied by a non-elected quango, the Yorkshire and Humber Assembly.
Up to summer 2003 members of this quango - including coincidentally one Carl Lis - didn’t receive allowances, but having once begun, they then increased those allowances by 43% last year.
So who sets these allowances, and these rates of growth?
Who allows members to be paid twice for the same IT equipment? (See HERE) and thinks that a five fold increase in 4 years is reasonable?
At Craven District Council it’s a body called the Independent Remuneration Panel
and it consists of:
Mr John Goodfellow - Chief Executive of Skipton Building Society, and Chairman of the Panel;
Mr Ian Lockwood - Editor, Craven Herald and Pioneer;
Mr John Edwards - retired local authority chief executive.
There’s an established principle termed ‘Caesar’s Wife’ which states that anything in the public domain must be above suspicion.
In the case of this Independent Remuneration Committee, one member is the Chief Executive and Director of Skipton Building Society, a Society which has just had plans approved by the council for what can only be described as a very contentious application. (See HERE)
The second member is the editor of our local newspaper, the Craven Herald, which relies on a significant volume of council advertising revenue, and on regular council press hand-outs.
CRAG is not stating that there is anything illegal with this arrangement, neither are we stating that any of the members of this panel are in any way biased. Not us, we wouldn’t want the expense of Messrs. Sue, Grabbit and Runne landing on the taxpayer once again!
No, we’re merely asking you, the taxpayer, if you feel that this choice of panel members is, in your opinion, ‘above suspicion.’
There is now a chance to improve the make up of this trio. The editor of the C.H. has been replaced, and another of the present trio has apparently seen ‘a change of circumstances.’
We’ll keep you up to date with the new names when we know them.
CRAG has asked under FOI rules for the names of the people who appoint this independent remuneration panel, and we will let you know as soon as we have that information.
Meanwhile...
Craven District Council has a Standards Committee. This is an important committee, with one of its functions judging the probity of councillors. Another is to judge any breaches of the Code of Conduct, either by Councillors or Council Officers.
A strong case for absolute independence one might suppose, so who selects this independent member?
It’s a panel consisting of the Chairman of the Standards Committee Mr Mike Spence (Independent member) and Councillors Mick Hill and Paul Whitaker.
In other words two out of the three people selecting someone who will judge the conduct of councillors, are themselves councillors, and the third is a person previously selected by a panel mainly comprised of councillors.
Well, what COULD be fairer than that?
Independent’ - adj. Not subject to bias.
Chambers’ 20th Century Dictionary.
Chambers’ 20th Century Dictionary.
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