The Department of Infrastructure is proposing a new Order, which would allow Local Authorities greater flexibility in determining attendance allowance rates by introducing a distinction between attendance at daytime and evening meetings, whilst also prescribing different rates for those meetings.
Following representations early in 2013 and extensive consultation with all Local Authorities and Joint Boards, the Department has determined that a compromise proposal should be put forward and this is due to go to Tynwald in November 2013. The responses from Authorities and Boards to the consultation were largely in favour of keeping attendance allowance rates at the existing levels and the Department does recognise that a number of elected members working at Authorities do not claim allowances at all, which is a personal matter. However, the Department identified that a number of Authorities were moving more towards holding meetings during the daytime and that members attendance allowance rates were not reflective of this change in approach.
As the vast majority of Local Authority meetings are held during the evening and the Department is proposing to keep the rate of attendance at ?30 maximum per evening session (this is in accordance with the majority of views received during the consultation). An hourly rate of ?7.50 is also being proposed to help reduce costs, in the event that meetings are shorter. However, the annual maximum attendance allowance claimable for evening meetings only, is to remain at ?3600 per annum.
To address concerns raised by some authorities that existing rates were too low for the amount of time that some members had to spend at meetings, the Department is proposing to introduce a new daytime rate of ?12.50 per hour up to a maximum of ?50 per daytime session (equivalent of 4 hours). A new maximum attendance allowance claimable for daytime or a mix of daytime and evening meetings would be set at ?6,000 per person per annum.
It is intended that if approved, any changes will come into operation from the 1 April 2014.
