A CONTROVERSIAL decision to give members of one of West Devon Borough Council’s committees a 57% increase in their allowance has been described as ‘inappropriate’ when local authorities are facing more and more pressure on their budgets.

Councillors voted to support the increase for the seven members of the hub committee, which equates to nearly £17,000, at their full council meeting last week, but at the same meeting cut the council’s arts funding to Villages In Action and the South West Museums Fund by half.

It was agreed by 14 votes to nine, with three abstentions, that members of the hub committee, which makes decisions relating to budgets and policies, should be entitled to receive 90% of the basic allowance rather than the 33% that was agreed when the committee was established last year.

Hub committee councillors will now receive £8,060 per year which includes their ‘special responsibility allowance’ and brings them on a par with the chairmen of the two overview and scrutiny committees and chairman of the audit committee.

Other roles where a special responsibility allowance is granted, are the leader of the council (basic x 200%), deputy leader of the council (basic x 150%), leaders of other political groups (basic x 100% then divided by the total number of councillors and then multiplied by the size of the group) and chairman of the planning and licensing committee (basic 120%). Councillors who hold more than one role of special responsibility are only entitled to one extra allowance on top of their basic allowance.

The basic allowance, which all members of the council receive, is £4,242, which is currently the lowest in the county and one of the lowest in the country.

Cllr Terry Pearce, who voted against the increase, said: ‘ At the moment local authorities find themselves in very difficult financial situations. If you were running a business and you suffer a downturn in trade, you do not award yourself a pay rise, unless you are Philip Green at BHS (British Home Stores).

‘There are some members who are deserving of this increase but it is an entirely inappropriate time for this to happen. The grant local authorities get from central government to help carry out the services they deliver is being reduced all the time and that grant will finish in 2018/19. We need to find ways of raising money to cover that shortfall not increasing members’ allowances.’

At the same meeting members voted to reduce the arts funding to Villages In Action, which brings theatre to small communities, by £8,000 to £4,000 and to the South West Museums Fund, from £2,000 to £1,000, but agreed to increase the money the council gives to the borough’s Business Information Point (BIP), based at Okehampton, to help businesses start-up and grow

Cllr Bill Cann said 90% on the basic allowance for hub committee members was ‘too much’ when grants which benefited the community were being cut: ‘Concessionary grants are going, anything that is not statutory now is under threat of being lost. We just don’t have the money any more to fund this and that. Yes, the members of the hub committee work hard but I feel a smaller percentage increase would have been more appropriate.’

The recommendation was made by an independent panel which concluded that there were comparisons between the hub committee member role and the role of the chairman of the overview and scrutiny committees and the audit committee — both of whom were entitled to receive a special responsibility allowance of 90% of the basic allowance in recognition of the extra duties they carry out.

Leader of the council Cllr Philip Sanders said the decision had been made based on the recommendation of two independent reviews (one which was carried out last year) and the substantial workload for the hub committee members.

‘It’s also an issue of fairness,’ he said. ‘A lot of us feel very uneasy about giving an allowance increase in the present situation but when you look at the increase from 33% to 90%, in monetary terms, it is not a huge amount especially in the context of a budget of £7-million.

‘These are difficult times — next year the council has to be self sufficient and we need the best people coming forward with ideas to help us get there. In the hub committee we have these people. The increase is recompense for the job they do.’

Cllr Sanders said all members of the council were having to work harder than they did five years ago — due in part to the council’s radical Transformation 18 programme which resulted in 32 redundancies (since July 2014) and new ways of working to make the council more efficient and save costs.

Councillors also spent more time in their communities dealing with issues and travelling between West Devon and the South Hams, where council services are now shared, for meetings. It was his opinion that the basic entitlement should be increased for all members but it was very difficult to do that at this time.

Speaking about the increase in grant to BIP from £8,000 to £15,000, Cllr Robert Oxborough, the council’s lead member for the economy, said: ‘In these times of austerity it is essential that we prioritise our funding to help deliver a stronger local economy. In February last year we identified economy as one of our two highest priorities and since then a working group has been reviewing how we can support the local economy more.

‘The local economy is important for employment, the health and well-being of residents and because now that the council derives income directly from local business through business rates, the council has a natural obligation to provide relevant support where it is able to do so.

‘Unfortunately that does mean that we have had to look at reducing some of the funding that we are allocating to arts projects like Villages in Action and also to the South West Museums Fund, but by delivering a stronger economy locally, both our villages and our tourism outlets will benefit in the longer term.

‘The package includes some exciting new initiatives and should see councillors’ engagement with local businesses increase.  The national project, the Teenage Market, will come to West Devon and there will be a package of work around the digitisation of the town centres, including a review of the feasibility to introduce free visitor wi-fi in these key trading locations.’