Dear Editor,
The Labour-led coalition which currently runs Cheshire East Council has decided to promote a scheme which pays their own members more money, creating an extra cost for the tax payer.
Most councils use an Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) to review councillors’ allowances from time to time.
This panel of experts costs a significant amount of money and the accepted protocol is for the council to either accept their recommendations or reduce the cost of them.
Cheshire East commissioned such a panel to recommend new allowances as the council moves from a Cabinet system to a committee system.
The Labour-led coalition is now recommending to full council that the IRP’s work is ignored, and that we should increase special responsibility allowances paid to certain councillors over and above the amount recommended by the panel.
Almost all the raised allowances in question will be paid to individuals who are members of the Labour-led coalition.
Despite simultaneously ignoring the IRP’s recommendation to pay a small allowance to opposition spokesmen on the service committees (they are cutting these to zero), the extra cost to the tax payer of these unnecessary changes to the IRP’s recommendations will be almost £8,000 a year.
On top of the many thousands of pounds wasted on employing the IRP, this should not be happening when the council’s funding is under intense strain due to the Covid pandemic.
It’s a disgrace, but typically Labour.
Yours,
Cllr Tony Dean
Cheshire East Council
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