Communities and Local Government written question – answered at on 28 March 2011.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if he will bring forward proposals to enable non-executive council members to limit the remuneration of local authority chief executives.
The Government have brought forward measures in the Localism Bill to require locally elected councillors to have a greater say in the setting of senior pay. Under the proposals, councils will have to prepare, approve and publish a senior pay policy statement which will set the framework which they will be required to follow when setting senior pay locally. Such a statement must be considered by full council.
In addition, the Secretary of State has signalled his intention to issue guidance under those provisions to set out the Government's view on a threshold at which remuneration decisions should be always brought before full council to vote on. The Secretary of State's view is that £100,000 is an appropriate threshold. This will be expressed in guidance to which councils must have regard. The guidance will be published in draft for consultation in due course.
The Government's role in specific local government pay and workforce issues is extremely limited as they are, rightly, a matter for the individual councils as the employer. The Government are clear, however, that the measures set out above will greatly increase local democratic accountability over local authority pay matters.
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