This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Scope of Local Governance Bill announced
19/11/2002
The scope of the Local Governance Bill was announced
today.
The Bill covers many issues relating to councillors, how
they are elected, how they are rewarded and removing barriers
to a more diverse range of councillors. The Bill will be
published before the end of the current Parliamentary session
and will be available for decision by the new Executive
following the election next May.
Giving evidence to the Local Government Committee today,
Deputy Finance and Public Services Minister Peter Peacock
said:
"We announced on 24 September that we would publish a Local
Governance Bill before the end of this Parliamentary session
which will include the Single Transferable Vote as the
alternative choice to the First Past the Post system for local
authority elections. We also indicated that we would announce
the intentions on the other issues included in the White Paper
in due course.
"As well as providing for the introduction of the Single
Transferable Vote, the Local Governance Bill will also
- bring the age for standing as a councillor (21) into
line with the voting age (18);
- repeal the legislation establishing a salary threshold
for politically restricted posts within local authorities
but retain the provisions which identify particular posts
as politically restricted;
- amend the current legislation so that council employees
have to resign on election as a councillor, rather than on
nomination as a candidate; and
- reduce to three months the period during which former
councillors are unable to take up employment with the
council after their period of service comes to an end. We
will, however, retain the current 12 month period for
politically restricted posts and for councillors who have
been involved in the appointment of council staff.
- abolish the current system of basic and special
responsibility allowances and provide for the introduction
of a new system of remuneration to be based on the payment
of a salary, supplemented by a limited number of additional
payments to reflect members' additional
responsibilities;
- introduce some independent element (such a a
remuneration panel) to be involved in deciding on the
detailed arrangements for, and the level of, remuneration
package for councillors; and
- permit a pension scheme for councillors to allow future
service to count for pension purposes."
Mr Peacock added:
"The level of detail included in the published Local
Governance Bill will vary according to the subject covered.
"The provisions on the age of standing as a councillor, for
example, are relatively straightforward and will be set out
quite clearly. Issues like this, where our policy intentions
were clearly set out in the White Paper, were broadly endorsed
by around 90 per cent of the respondents.
"Other issues, such as for a package of remuneration are
different. On these issues, we intend to take general powers in
the Bill and specify the detail in secondary legislation.
"Parliament will, however, have input into the detail when
the secondary legislation is laid before Parliament.
"There is still a significant amount of work to be done on
the detail behind our decision to change the remuneration
arrangements for councillors.
" The consultation responses in this area were far from
clear-cut, there was no overwhelming majority in favour of one
particular approach and we need to keep a keen eye on the
overall costs."