The Green Party has condemned Conservative and Labour councillors for "conspiring" to delay a decision on Brighton and Hove councillors’ pay until after the general election. The proposals, which were to be debated at this week’s council meeting, will now not be looked at until the council meeting at the end of July.

An independent panel has recommended changes to the pay scheme to reflect the council’s change from a committee to a cabinet system in 2008. Its most radical proposal is scrapping 12 special responsibility allowances paid to the deputy chairs of the scrutiny committees, the planning, licensing, governance and audit committees and the Conservative and Labour representatives on the Arts Commission. In addition, the number of paid deputy leader of the opposition posts would be reduced from 2 to 1.

These and other changes cut the overall allowances budget by about £17,000. Seven Labour councillors will lose their special allowances, if the proposals are agreed, along with 4 Tory councillors, 1 Green and 1 Lib Dem.

Green Party Convenor Bill Randall said:
“The official reason for the delay from the Tory/Labour coalition is that they did not expect the review to be so radical. This claim hardly bears examination. The August 2008 council was told that the independent panel ‘were aware of the difficulty faced with regard to the number of SRAs and the new model... and was keen to review the matter during the next review period.’

"In December 2008 the panel chair wrote to all councillors promising ‘an extensive review and the first one to be undertaken since the council moved to new governance arrangements.’

“Furthermore, all the parties had plenty of time to debate the proposals, which were first shared with party leaders at the beginning of February. I immediately circulated the proposals to my colleagues, and we responded to the panel. Greens don’t agree with all the proposals, but we believe if the council decides to use an independent remuneration panel to set councillors’ allowances, it should accept  the panel’s decisions.

“We support the panel’s proposals and believed they should have been debated on schedule. We would like to know the real reason for the Tory/Labour coalition’s decision to kick them into touch until after the election.”

For more information about the Greens view:
www.brightonhovegreens.org