Local government committee to hold inquiry into returning officer pay

2007 Scottish Parliament election count in Fife - Image credit: Duncan C via Flickr

The Scottish Parliament’s Local Government and Communities Committee is to look into the payment for returning officers in Scotland, amid reports they have jointly earned a million pounds for election duties over the last two years.

There have been calls for a review of the pay for election returning officers earlier this year after council executives received tens of thousands of pounds on top of their normal salaries for their role in the Scottish parliamentary election and EU referendum.

Scotland’s returning officers are the chief executives of the 32 local authorities, but their work managing elections is considered to be a separate role and attracts special payments.

With two elections and two referenda within the last two years and another election next year, this can amount to significant sums of money, with some reports suggesting that between them Scotland’s returning officers may have been paid around a million pounds for the last four polls.

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In May SNP MSP John Mason tabled a motion in the Scottish Parliament calling for a review of these allowances, which attracted cross-party support.

The motion notes “the reported comments of Malcolm Burr, the chair of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives Scotland, that ‘the outdated system of remuneration requires a review’ and of Willie Sullivan, the director of the Electoral Reform Society Scotland, that the running of elections should be ‘added to the job descriptions of local authority chief executives as an integral part of their role’, and agrees that, at a time of budgetary restraint, a review of this expenditure is required.”

The local government committee will carry out a short inquiry, the terms of which are yet to be agreed, into payment to returning officers as part of its work programme for this session of parliament.

This is one of a number of areas that the committee has identified where it plans to undertake proactive scrutiny in addition to scrutinising bills and secondary legislation.

As well as the inquiry into returning officers’ pay, planned work includes a roundtable on the implications for local government of leaving the EU and another to look at increasing voter turnout and lessons from the 2012 council election ahead of the 2017 local government elections.

The committee will also hold one or more inquiries into housing supply, particular aspects affecting supply of land, and will look at the requirement to provide of community facilities and infrastructure as part of securing planning permission.

The latter will inform the committee’s scrutiny of the Scottish Government’s planning bill, which is due to come before parliament early next year.

Further areas the committee may consider scrutiny of in future include non-domestic rates, city region deals, Scottish cities alliances, business improvement districts and the growth accelerator model, the Joint Housing Delivery Plan for Scotland 2015-2020, homelessness and the housing options approach, and community planning partnerships.

The committee will also consider options for post-legislative scrutiny.