Often, District and County Council meetings test one’s boredom level as the meetings are often a formality and decision making is often pushed to the side. So it was on Tuesday when Babergh Councillors were asked to note the Council’s Annual Treasury Management Report and the progress and strategy of CIFCO (the Council’s property company). Although the papers presented to us were for noting rather than approval there was some lively questioning
About an hour and a half into the meeting we sat down to look at a paper for approval bearing the seemingly innocuous title “BC/23/17 Recommendation from the Independent Review Panel”.
This paper suggested that as we now had two Deputy Leaders (one a legal requirement) and the other discretionary (depending upon the wishes of the parties concerned), they should both be classified as political and were recommended to receive 1.25 times the basic Councillor’s allowance as a special responsibility allowance for their respective positions.
The paper’s arguments seemed reasonable until the assumptions were tested. The comparative councils with two or more deputy leaders were much larger than Babergh. The range of skills and duties suggested that we would be paying over the odds for a job share programme. Really, this was a ruse to reward political allies.
After much discussion in the chamber, I was pleased to move an amendment to the original proposals and suggest that as this was a job share, each of the deputies should receive half of the suggested allowance.
The voting went to 11 votes for and 11 votes against with 5 abstentions. The Chair exercised her casting vote against the amendment, even though there was a distinct mood that the original suggestions were not acceptable.
We then moved to voting on the substantive motion. 10 voted for and 11 voted against whereupon the original recommendation was lost and the residents won.
Taxpayers should not be paying for vanity projects and this whole exercise demonstrated that although the Conservative Group at Council is small (seven of us) we are not without friends.
The meeting may be viewed on YouTube and the web address is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQhNAX5Que0
Disclaimer:

This blog/post is the sole responsibility of its author Brian Riley.
It has not been approved nor is it endorsed by Babergh District Council or South Suffolk Conservative Association