More pay

The mid point of a quiet three-week Easter recess at the National Assembly led me on a tour of the darker corners of the institution’s website.
There is the report of the independent panel set up to deliberate on the contentious issue of AMs’ pay.
This issue of the inflation-busting 8.3% pay rise, which flared up just before the recess, may well be thought to have burnt itself out by now.
But there were a few questions raised in this report that were worth pondering, especially as they were disregarded by the commission which settled the pay deal.

While the political outcry focussed on the overall rise in AMs’ pay to 82% of that of MPs - and Plaid Cymru’s rejection of it - the widening of the pay structure to encompass extra roles and duties appeared to receive less scrutiny.
The number of enhanced salaried posts rose from 27 in the last Assembly to 35, in theory giving extra responsibility payments to more than half the Assembly.
For the first time, the government chief whip would receive an additional £25,566; opposition chief whip £11,331 more, so too the leader of the smallest party, and four Assembly Commissioners; while previously unpaid chairs of some committees were handed an extra £5,934.
Interesting to read then what the independent panel, chaired by former parliamentary clerk Sir Michael Wheeler-Booth, had to say on some of these enhancements among just five recommendations to the Assembly Commission.
That figure of 82% was calculated thus: “Although Members’ roles had not reached the level of those of Members of the Scottish Parliament, for example, pending a more fundamental review of financial support to Members, it would be appropriate to recommend an increase in salary to a point about halfway between the existing percentage of an MP’s salary and the percentage of that of a Scottish Member.”
Quite scientific then.
On the extra payments to the chairs of committees, it said: “Some of the submissions we received suggested that it would be desirable to extend salaries to all chairs of committees.
“However, we did not find the evidence in support of this view to be convincing.”
Regarding payments to whips, which caused a cross-party row when suggested by first minister Rhodri Morgan last October, the report concluded: “We were not satisfied at this stage that we had sufficient evidence to recommend an appropriate level of salary for party whips.”
On payments to party leaders, the report considered: “We also noted that in the House of Commons only the leader of the main opposition party receives a salary. And in the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly no opposition party leader receives a salary.
“But we are persuaded that the current system produces anomalies that we believe should be addressed.”
There does not appear to be any recommendation to pay Assembly Commissioners more money.
Further more detailed reviews of that salary structure should take place in the future, it says.
But the report points out: “It may also be desirable to develop a system which sets AMs’ pay without the intervention of the Assembly or the Commission so that politicians would no longer have a direct say on their pay increases.”ENDS