So much for 'tightening belts' then.
I would imagine that there are many employees of the council who will be interested to learn of this.
Update 15th July;
I have now been informed that this £20,000 is for Returning officer fees, for 2011/12. This will have included the Welsh Assembly ( plus Alternative Vote referendum) elections held in May 2011. The RO fees for the local elections held in May 2012 and the Police Commissioner elections later this year will appear on 2012/13 Statement of Accounts senior salary.
As far as I can make out, the maximum personal fees for Returning Officer services for the Assembly and AV Referendum in May last year was £4,730 (see here) I assume the figure of £20,000 classed within 'Salary' includes additional unspecified expenses and covers fees for more than one constituency.
If this is the case, I am of course happy to clarify the situation.
Should the returning officer retire during an election year, the fees would also be included towards the final salary pension.
Update 2013 - Plaid Cymru politicians have made further investigations
9 comments:
Makes for interesting, unsurprising and disheartening reading. I wonder what the year-on-year percentage increase have been, as it looks like there must surely be a catch-up, indeed a complete over-take, to compensate for last year's freeze. Compensation is usually the term used for job losses, not for temporary pay freezes.
Not justifying it, but probably for his role as Returning Officer during the election - all Chief Exec's get it. Some might say that work is already part of the contract...
Could be but Returning Officer fees are not usually included and are administered by another body.
I think you're right Caebrwyn. The fees and pension entitlements which go with them probably add at least another £10,000 to the total.
My goodness - I wonder what the unions wil make of this considering the public sector pay freeze and redundancy programme.
Would this pay rise have had to be passed by council - what does the opposition make of it ?
I wonder what the journal will say ? oops, sorry, they wont report it of course. its the Chief Executive !!!
As you may imagine I have had numerous comments on this post, many thanks to all for taking the trouble. Unfortunately due to present circumstances I am unable to publish some of them at the moment.
I hope readers understand and please keep them coming.
As for local reporting of this story, I draw your attention to my previous post; http://carmarthenplanning.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/the-question-of-editorial-controlagain.html
The Blair/Brown government quietly made some changes to the system of returning officer fees a few years back. Under the new system, which is much more generous, returning officers are paid a full fee in respect of every constituency which falls into their patch. A returning officer with, say, 3 constituencies will "earn" three times as much as e.g. poor old Bronwen Morgan in Ceredigion.
The Welsh proverb for this is "i'r pant rhed y dwr" (roughly: water runs to the dip).
I think you'll find that Mark James was the returning officer for at least two constituencies namely Llanelli and Carmarthen East and Dinefwr.He would have earned £4730 for each constituency
Nice work if you can get it !!!
Post a Comment