A row broke out as Kirklees councillors agreed to hike the allowance for a new role.

Labour, Green and Independent members voted in favour of a £7,365 special responsibility allowance (SRA) for four new District Committee chairs.

The Committees will play a key part in how Kirklees Council devolves powers, but such decisions haven’t yet been taken.

Opposition members in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties felt a ruling should be made in November, when more is known about what responsibility the chairs will have.

Kirklees chief executive Adrian Lythgo made it “explicitly clear that in the short term the important role of district chairs will be to act in an advisory capacity to the Cabinet in determining the future. They do not have formal decision making authority beyond those for existing Area Committees until the Cabinet or Council ... formally devolve functions”.

Clr Nicola Turner, Lib Dem leader, asked: “We don’t know what they’re going to be doing yet. How can we justify it if we don’t know what the role is?”

But Full Council was divided – the Corporate Governance and Audit Committee wanted to halt the increase that had been proposed by the Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) which recommends allowances. That panel advised a Band C rate of £7,365 for the four chairs.

However, the cross-party committee recommended that be lowered to a Band E of £2,454 until a wider review of councillor’s allowances in November.

Kirklees Council leader Clr David Sheard moved an amendment and said the council should accept whatever the IRP advised, which meant a £4,911 hike per councillor.

Clr Sheard said: “I am of the view that we have an independent panel so we don’t have to make these decisions. It sets a precedent if we say we are going to ignore the views of the panel.”

Cleckheaton Lib Dem Clr Kath Pinnock said: “We have ignored the views of the IRP once before in not raising our allowances. We don’t have information about this so don’t ask me to rubber-stamp something I know nothing about because I won’t do it.”

Clr David Hall, Conservative deputy leader, said: “If we put this back until November then we can have a better understanding of what the role is and we can reward them with a higher SRA rate.”

The vote was won 32 vs 22, with two abstentions.

The four chairs are Labour Clrs Simon Alvy (Batley and Spen chair), Darren O’Donovan (Dewsbury and Mirfield chair) Naheed Mather (Huddersfield chair) and Independent Edgar Holroyd-Doveton (Kirklees Rural chair).

Councillors also agreed to a £6,000 allowance to the council’s Police and Crime Panel members – Clrs Phil Scott (Almondbury Lib Dem) and Masood Ahmed (Dewsbury South Labour). The rate is a decrease of £138 from last year but the same as others in the West Yorkshire Police force area.

Overall the changes mean an additional cost to Kirklees Council of £12,282.

In November the IRP is expected to reconsider all allowances in light of the changing role of councillors.

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