Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales meeting: 7 January 2025
Summary of the minutes of the meeting held on 7 January 2025.
This file may not be fully accessible.
In this page
Attendees
- Frances Duffy, Chair
- Saz Willey, Vice Chair
- Bev Smith, member
- Kate Watkins, member
- Dianne Bevan, member
- Sara Rees, secretariat
- Leighton Jones, secretariat
External stakeholders attending the meeting
Representatives from the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru:
- Roger Ashton-Winter
- Cher Cooke
Introduction
The Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales (the Panel) met on Tuesday 7 January.
The aim of the meeting was to:
- review and agree the minutes and summary of the November meeting, note the secretariat and budget updates and review and update the operational plan for 2024 to 2025
- consider and agree the following of papers presented to the Panel in order to inform the final report and determinations, including:
- a summary of the consultation responses received to the draft annual report 2025
- final annual report, which includes feedback from consultation and determinations for 2025 to 2026
- an updated breakdown of all allowances paid to members of community and town councils in 2023 to 2024
- an analysis of the attendance allowance at Community and Town Councils in Group 3
- review the updated legacy report and note an update on the data transfer to the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru
Below summarises the Panel’s discussions and decisions.
Actions, secretariat and budget updates
The Panel agreed the minutes and summary from the November meeting and noted the budget update.
The Panel reviewed and discussed correspondence received from 2 community and town councils and 1 principal authority and its proposed responses to each one.
A summary of the consultation responses received to the draft annual report 2025
The Panel were provided with a summary of the responses that were received during the consultation period on the draft annual report. The Panel noted that there were fewer responses than in previous years and, whilst this may be a reflection that the draft Report contained few new initiatives or changes, remains a concern about how effective our engagement with key stakeholders is .
Any key themes that have arisen will be addressed in the final report, to be published by the end of February.
The Panel wishes to thank all stakeholders who provided feedback and responses to the draft annual report.
Statement of payments 2023 to 2024: community and town councils
The Panel considered an updated paper on the statement of payments made to members of community and town councils during 2023 to 2024.
The updated paper provided the Panel with a further breakdown of all allowances paid, since its original paper in October, together with yearly trends over the last 5 years. This information helps form the basis for future work and to see how effective the remuneration framework is across Wales.
The Panel remain concerned about the poor level of compliance amongst the smaller councils and agreed to discuss with One Voice Wales and Audit Office.
Attendance allowance
The Panel considered an analysis of attendance allowance of Group 3 Community and Town Councils who had provided this allowance to their members.
The Panel wanted to see if this allowance has resulted in an increase in meeting attendance and if it had any effect on the basic and senior payments. This analysis was 1 of their objectives for 2024 to 2025. There is too little data at present to make an informed judgement, therefore this will be noted as a forward issue for the Legacy report.
Legacy report
The Panel were provided with an update on the progress of the legacy report. This report will include areas of interest where further consideration may be needed in the future, such as youth representation, CTC compliance and associated administrative challenges and rate of payments to co-opted members. This will be published on the website alongside the final annual report .
Any other business
The Panel considered and discussed the examples of the new hourly payments to coopted members at principal authorities. These examples will be circulated to stakeholders with an interest.
Next meeting
The next meeting of the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales will take place on 18 February 2025.
Should you have any matters you wish to raise with the Panel, please do not hesitate to get in touch via the Secretariat by emailing IRPMailbox@gov.wales.