OPPOSITION leaders accused the county council’s Conservative administration of "providing jobs for the boys" after the ruling group blocked a proposal to increase allowances’ at a nil cost to tax payers.

Councillors were asked to approve a revised councillors’ allowances scheme – based upon recommendations published in the Report of the Herefordshire Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP Report) – at last Friday’s full council meeting.

Six options were available and a recommendation was put forward by Cllr Nigel Shaw, cabinet member for financial management and ICT, to adopt an option resulting in a budget increase of 1.91%.

That approved option will see councillors’ basic allowances go up from £7,400 to £7,423, with a mandatory training element, and sets the leader’s Special Responsibility Allowance (SRA) at £29,692.

Cabinet members, meanwhile, will get a SRA of £12,990 per year and the chairman of the council, scrutiny committee chairman, and chairman of planning and regulatory committee will receive £9,279 per year.

Opposition groups had earlier suggested another option which would have increased the basic allowance to £8,489 while reducing the leader’s SRA to £20,374 and to £8,913 for cabinet members.

Crucially, however, this option would have had zero implications for the council’s budget.

Proposing "Option D", Councillor Anthony Power, leader of It’s Our County, said Herefordshire had one of the highest differentials between councillors’ basic allowance and multiples for SRAs.

He said: “The point about this option is it substantially narrows that egregiously wide gap. Furthermore, it has absolutely zero implications on our budget.”

Cllr Bob Matthews, leader of the Independent group, said it was important to remember there had been a ‘severe’ cut-back of council services.

He added: “One thing in particular I noticed in the independent panels report, they raised the issue of the large number of cabinet members assistants we employ, and pointed out that such practice is very rare elsewhere in the country.

“I suggest leader that you urgently review all the present posts of special responsibility, otherwise the public will gain the impression that you are providing jobs for the boys. I think it is true that only the Russian Embassy have more aides and attaches than this council.”

Meanwhile, Cllr Terry James, leader of the Lib Dem group, asked: “At a time when people in this county are having their services cut and may well find themselves having to pay for help at home in social care, what are we doing?

"We are giving most of the money to the controlling group within the council.”

The option proposed by the cabinet member – and eventually adopted following a named vote – was still less than the recommendation from the IRP which would have resulted in a 16.43% increase.

The independent panel compared the Herefordshire allowances with those paid by similar unitary councils across the country.

Calls were also made at the meeting to take the decision of increasing allowances out of the council's hands in future and to ensure the basic allowance was enough to encourage younger people to take on councillors' responsibilities.

Cllr Bartlett, leader of the Greens, added: “If people are having to make a choice between coming to a committee meeting and having to work for a living then we need to make sure that we are actually meeting the key principle that the basic allowance should encourage people from a wider range of backgrounds.”

A total of 26 councillors voted for option B and 18 voted for option D. There were two abstentions.