Cheshire East deputy leader standing down because can’t afford to stay

If the extra special responsibility allowance (SRA) is voted through by full council later this month, it comes too late for Cllr Craig Browne (Alderley Edge, Ind) who said he was standing down as deputy leader and highways chair because he couldn’t afford to stay in the roles.

At present councillors can only claim one SRA.

This means the deputy council leader, for example, gets the basic allowance all councillors receive of £12,851 plus £17,820 SRA for being deputy leader, taking the total to £30,671.

Cllr Craig Browne (Image: Cheshire East Council)At Tuesday’s corporate policy committee meeting, Labour and the Independents voted to recommend to full council that it allows councillors to claim two special responsibility allowance, as advised by the Independent Remuneration Panel.

Using the example of the deputy leader, that would add another SRA of £12,485 being paid for the role of highways chair, taking the total ‘pay’ to £43,156.

Any service committee chair, who currently receives an SRA of £12,485, would get an additional SRA of £6,242 if they were also vice chair of a different service committee.

Cllr Browne told the meeting: “I’m leaving these roles not because I want to but because I’ve got to and I’ve got to because it has become financially unsustainable for me to continue.

“The deputy leader in a joint administration in a council that is 15th largest in the country… is a full time job with a part-time salary…

“If it’s a full time role it removes the option of going out and earning a salary, so how are you supposed to survive unless you are either retired or independently wealthy?”

He said he had never received a penny for being in charge of highways for five years.

He added if the proposals had come forward nine months ago ‘there is every likelihood that I would not now be leaving the roles that I currently occupy’.

Cllr Sam Corcoran (Image: Cheshire East Council)Council leader Sam Corcoran (Lab) told the committee: “There are members of our council who have given up jobs to work for the council and are struggling financially.

“We have frozen allowances for a number of years, we put them up by four per cent in 2022/23 when inflation was running at 10 per cent, we’re advocating freezing them again now.”

Cllr Corcoran would be entitled to an extra £12,485 as chair of corporate policy if full council approves the recommendation.

He said if it was approved it is up to individual members as to whether they take the allowances and this could be checked in the list of councillor allowances next year.

Cllr Mark Goldsmith (Wilmslow, Ind) said it would bring Cheshire East in line with almost all other councils.

Conservative group leader Janet Clowes proposed an amendment to remove the recommendation permitting councillors to claim two SRAs.

This was voted down by Labour and the Independents.

Cllr Jos Saunders (Image: Cheshire East Council)Cllr Jos Saunders (Poynton, Con) said: “At the moment our residents are being asked to have, potentially, their recycling centres mothballed, they’re being asked to pay an uplift in green bin charges and, as a council, we’ve already gone through on the MTFS (budget) the challenges that are facing us, and having this will actually mean that we spend more money.”

Cllr Chris O’Leary (Sutton, Con) said to vote to allow extra payments ‘at a meeting where we’ve heard that the council’s reserves are inadequate is, I would suggest, perverse’.

A final decision will be made at full council on February 27.