Imagine giving up your time, unpaid, to sit on an the Isle of Wight council Panel for several years, and then hear through the press that you have recommended a rise for councillors’ allowances – despite not having met for two years – and then you’re told by a senior council officer that all members of the Panel have resigned, when they haven’t.
This is exactly what members of the Isle of Wight council Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) say they have experienced in the last few months.
Shocked to read it in the press
Members of the Panel have told News OnTheWight how shocked they were to read a report in September 2020 that a majority of councillors had voted through a 2.75 percent rise to their allowance “following the advice of an independent remuneration panel”.
Members of the panel have not met since 2018 and say they were were not asked to meet last year – which they say, in light of the lockdown, could have easily been carried out via a Zoom call.
As part of our investigation, News OnTheWight spoke to two members of the IRP, the Chairman and Max Morrison (former Governor of HMP Isle of Wight).
Morrison: Never our intention that we wouldn’t be consulted about it
Mr Morrison explained how they had not been asked to meet last year to discuss any recommendations about the allowance. Instead, he said, the then-interim monitoring officer, Geoff Wild, had based the recommended increase on a report from 2018.
The 2018 report from the IRP that the council officer was referring to stated:
26. Over the past few years, the panel have reported on a regular basis as a result of various changes to the council’s governance structure in order to ensure that the allowances reflect the changes. However, in the event that there are no changes there may be no need for a report every year. With that in mind, and reflecting upon comments received from members previously and our commitment to consider this in this review the panel are of the view that a form of indexation that allows an inflationary increase annually in the event that there is no separate report from the IRP is appropriate. It is recommended that the scheme be amended to include provision for an annual increase.
Mr Morrison challenged this, telling News OnTheWight,
“What they are relying on is a comment we made in 2018 which was that we were minded in future to make the councillors’ allowance increase on the basis of the staff pay increase. To give a sort of structure to it.
“But it was never our intention that we wouldn’t be consulted about it. the Chairman didn’t know anything about it.”
He went on to say,
“Courtesy would have suggested they would call and ‘say this is what we’re going to do are you content with that?’.”
Chairman: Councillors commenting on incorrect information
News OnTheWight have also spoken to the the Chairman of the Panel who explained the normal process would be for an officer of the council to approach the Chairman to see whether they need to meet.
He says no approach was made last year to call the Panel to a meeting to agree a recommended allowance rise.
“The first we knew was an article saying that the allowances for the members had been put up and it implied that we had agreed that and we had recommended that.
“We did not meet and as such, at the council meeting where that was debated, some councillors actually argued against a rise and others made comment, but they were commenting on information that was incorrect.”
Chairman: The process failed and then we were mis-represented
The Chairman of the Panel says it got worse when his members challenged it,
“In my view, a huge exercise of backfilling went on, where the Monitoring Officer said, ‘No, we looked at your report and you said this, that and other’.
“We were very clear we had said in that report we would look to align the pay rise of the staff and the allowances of the members, but that didn’t mean that was automatic. We were expecting that we would be included in the process.
“The process didn’t happen, the process failed and then we were mis-represented in the press and from then on we were told that we had resigned.”
Morrison: “A rank discourtesy”
Mr Morrison said he suspected it had been a ‘cockup’ by the interim officer, who has now been replaced by full-time monitoring officer, Christopher Potter.
“It was a rank discourtesy and when we challenged him [Mr Wild] about it, he was dismissive to such an extent that I have decided that I shall not be a member in future.”
The Chairman of the Panel said that, in his view, he thought the “monitoring officer had been lazy”, not wanting to hold a meeting. He said there was no excuse to not have the meeting.
Morrison: “Discourteous” and “disrespectful”
The Chairman also told News OnTheWight that in their last meeting they had discussed refreshing the Panel, as many had served long terms, but he said, “That didn’t mean to say we had resigned in the meeting”. He said it was quite the opposite and some of them had agreed to continue working on the Panel.
Mr Morrison also told News OnTheWight that the council were struggling to find new members for the panel.
“The new democratic services manager has said ‘We’ll have a fresh start and we hope you’ll make an application’. I said, ‘no I shall not’.
“Having been on the panel since 2012/13, I’ve done long enough but I felt the way we were treated was totally discourteous.
“We are an independent panel, if that means anything, and it’s required by law that they have an independent panel, it’s not a choice, just to ignore us and treat us in such a cavalier way I thought was disrespectful.”
The Chairman also added that the Chief Executive of the council, John Metcalfe was fully aware of everything that was going on, as he was copied into all the emails.
The IWC have recently been seeking to recruit new members to the IRP, but the application period was twice extended.
‘Told we had all resigned – when we hadn’t’
News OnTheWight has seen an email from a council officer which stated that all members had resigned from the Panel, which Mr Morrison states is not true – only one of the four members had resigned.
When asked whether he thought what had happened was legal, he replied,
“I’m not sure, when the Chairman first raised it we were told there weren’t any members of the IRP, that they had all resigned, which wasn’t true at all.”
He added,
“The problem is that they have struggled to fill vacancies or retain people for some time which is why my contract was renewed twice, and the Chairman similarly.”
Morrison: I wanted to give something back
Mr Morrison – who had previously sat as Chairman of the panel for two terms – explained why he had been willing to take on this unpaid role for so long.
“I just wanted to give something back to the Isle of Wight.
“I had the skills and that’s why I thought I could do it.”
Allowances quite low
The level of councillors’ allowances are benchmarked against other councils of a similar size in the region and based on what the council can afford. Mr Morrison told News OnTheWight,
“The Isle of Wight is by no means extravagant in its payment of allowances, it is quite low compared to some other councils.”
Adding,
“If you are after a broader representation you’ve got to provide financial support for people who are giving up their time from business, or people needing childcare.
“It’s a compensation, it’s not a wage, it’s an allowance for the amount of time they give.”
Interviews are taking place this month for new members of the Panel.
IWC response
An Isle of Wight Council spokesperson as usual.
“In this case, the council accepted the Independent Remuneration Panel’s own recommendation to permit basic allowance to increase automatically each year in line with increases agreed for council officers under national arrangements.
“The exact wording of the indexation provision in paragraph 6 of the scheme agreed on 19 September 2018 is: “The Basic Allowance will be uplifted each year in line with the annual percentage increase agreed for the majority of Isle of Wight Council employees to whom the NJC terms and conditions apply and this will be applied once the pay settlement rate is known and will apply from April each year unless a further review of the IRP determines otherwise.”
“It is true, however, that not all members of the Independent Remuneration Panel had resigned. It has, though, no bearing on the right of the council to apply its indexation provision (recommended by the panel) in its adopted Scheme of Members’ Allowances.
“The panel did make that indexation recommendation at the time and, therefore, the correct process has been followed.”
Article edit
8.30am 2nd Feb 2021 – Link to 2018 IRP report and insertion of paragraph added. Corrected ‘raise’ to ‘rise’ in headline
9.15am 3rd Feb 2021 – ‘Set’ changed to ‘recommended’ in the headline and excerpt
2.45pm 12th Feb 2021 – Statement received 3 Feb from IWC added. Publishing delayed awaiting clarification from Monitoring Officer to News OnTheWight question. No reply after nine days, we can wait no more
4.30pm 15th Feb – Name of new MO added
Image: Robert Katzki under CC BY 2.0
