AMs update following Remuneration Board meeting 28 November 2014

Dear Assembly Member,

The Remuneration Board held its sixth meeting of 2014 on 28 November. I am writing to keep you abreast of progress.

Salaries Consultation launch

The Board held a brief discussion of the media and social media coverage of their launch, which has been much greater than for other consultations we have issued.

We noted the wide range and balanced coverage of the issues raised by the proposals. We are pleased that the media and interested stakeholders have assisted the debate by putting a number of arguments in to the public domain.

We look forward to receiving measured and reasoned formal responses to the consultation. We hope that many of those who have reacted to the initial announcement will consider the evidence we drew on to reach our proposals and respond in more detail about where they agree or disagree with our proposals.

Continuous Service of AMSS

The Board previously resolved to consider ways in which an AMSS who was made redundant, but subsequently re-employed by another AM, could forego their redundancy payment but retain their continuous service.

This proposal is appealing as it would save public money, and benefit staff.

However, the legal advice we commissioned seemed to indicate it was impossible, so we agreed to write to peer organisations in the other UK Parliaments to see whether they had considered the matter. The Scottish Parliament have put arrangements in place to enable Members to jointly employ their staff. The Board considers this solution to be so complex as to outweigh the small scope for beneficial outcomes.

We regret we cannot see a sensible legal way to provide for continuity of employment in the present circumstances. IPSA wrote to the Board on this matter and were of the same view.

Equalities

We considered feedback from Diverse Cymru regarding our consultations on pensions and allowances, and considered how we could address these in our Equality Impact Assessment of the Determination for the Fifth Assembly.

The Board noted that we have been nominated for an Excellence in Equality Award for our approach to our work..

AM Pensions

The Board considered correspondence from the Trustees of the current pension scheme, and discussed at length the developing draft scheme rules with our legal advisers from Wragge, Lawrence, Graham and Co.

There are some key issues on which we are seeking further guidance from HM Treasury, and we hope to be able to progress these next month.

Next steps

As with previous letters to Members, I intend to make this letter publicly available through our website in due course.

I will be meeting with the Group representatives for Members on 3 December and holding one of my regular drop-in sessions for all Members later that afternoon. I will continue to meet regularly with both the AM and AMSS representative groups.

As you will be aware, we are currently consulting on both Allowances (deadline 15 December) and Salaries (deadline 12 January). In the New Year, we will publish a draft package – allowing the public and Members to see and give their views on the total picture of remuneration for the Fifth Assembly. We remain on course to publish a Determination for the Fifth Assembly in May 2015, a year ahead of the Welsh General Election.

As always, I am happy to meet with individual AMs or party groups to discuss any aspects of the Board’s work. If you would like to meet, please contact the Board’s clerk Gareth Price remuneration@wales.gov.uk to make arrangements. 

Sandy Blair CBE DL