HC Deb 11 January 1995 vol 252 cc133-4W
Mr. Hawksley

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what changes he intends to make to the system of councillors' remuneration allowances following the consultation exercise he undertook earlier in the year.

Mr. Curry

In the light of the comments that we received during the consultation, my right hon. Friend will bring forward amending regulations which will give local authorities in England and Wales much greater discretion to decide how much councillors should be paid in allowances.

The current system of allowances is too prescriptive and places an unnecessary burden on local authorities. The changes to the system we propose to make will remove that burden and will encourage people with a wide range of skills to serve as councillors.

The draft regulations will:

  1. (a) remove the overall limit on what may be spent by authorities on their allowances schemes;
  2. (b) remove the requirement on local authorities to pay a special responsibility allowance or allowances and, where they decide they will pay such allowances, remove the upper limit on the level of allowances which can be paid to individual councillors; where special responsibility allowances are paid, the requirement that at least one member of a minority group on each authority should receive a special responsibility allowance will continue;
  3. (c) require the payment of a basic allowance to all councillors—but will not specify the level of allowance to be paid;
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  4. (d) permit the payment of attendance allowances and specify a range of single member duties which will be eligible for the payment of attendance allowances—these will be limited to statutory duties which councillors must perform but for which, currently, they are not able to claim attendance allowances if they perform them alone—including visits to children's homes, other social services residential establishments and special schools; and
  5. (e) require local authorities to publish details of the allowances schemes they make and to publish an annual report of the payments made to individual councillors under the scheme in order to ensure accountability.

My right hon. Friend will shortly consult local government about draft regulations which will implement the new system. The new allowances system will be in place from 1 April 1995.