Why is there a £17k to £19k discrepancy in allowances and expenses for councillors on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority?

Current Chair of the Audit Sub Committee Cllr Denise Roberts is in the foreground of this photo from 27th November 2014 Background L to R former DCE Kieran Timmins DCFO Phil Garrigan and councillor

There’s a discrepancy I’ve spotted. In the papers for the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority Policy and Resources Committee that meets on the 17th September 2015. There is a note in the Statement of Accounts (note 29) on page 59. It’s short so I’ll quote it below as it’s mainly information in a table.

29. Members’ Allowances

The Authority comprises of 18 councillors from the 5 districts of Merseyside. The total allowances paid to members within the year were:

	2014/15	2013/14
	£000	£000
Allowances	225	239
Expenses	14	23
	239	262

As you can see from the table above, for 2014/15 the total allowances paid to councillors is £225,000 and the total expenses for 2014/15 to councillors £14,000. The total for these two figures is £239,000.

On June 11th the Merseyside Fire & Rescue Authority met, agenda item 9 was Members Allowance Payments 2014/15. This agenda item contained a table detailing payments to councillors for 2014/15.

The total allowances detailed in that table for 2014/15 are £143,242.50 + £16,140 + £24,210.00 + £1.345.00 + £8,070.00 + £11,939.57 + £6,053.04 + £2,690.33 = £213,690.44

However £213,690.44 does not equal £225,000!

The difference is £11,309.56 +-£500!

The total expenses detailed in that table are £1,338.45 + £4,175.84 + £2,194.05 = £7,708.34

Again £7,708.34 does not equal £14,000.

This difference is £6,291.66 +-£500!

The two differences add up to a grand total of £17,601.22 +-£1000.

As the figures in the statement of accounts are rounded to the nearest £1000, this could be any figure between £16,601.22 and £18,601.20.

On the expenses side I can make an educated guess that the expenses paid directly by Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority that are detailed on the 49 pages of expenses here for councillors weren’t in June being properly coded. Page 2 of a letter from Janet Henshaw states that this amount estimated at between £5,700 and £6,700 wasn’t being coded to each councillor as it would require going through approximately 12 monthly invoices and coding expenditure to 18 councillors (which is classed as a “wholly unreasonable use of scarce resources”).

I’ve totted up amounts in the first twenty-four pages and they total £3,068.04. Assuming the other pages are for broadly similar amounts that would make the total in the ballpark figure of £6,136.08 (which is within the range of £6,291.66 +-£500).

However I’m still at a loss as to why there’s a ~£11,309.56+-£500 difference on allowances for 2014/15!

Perhaps I should ask the auditor Grant Thornton what’s going on and also raise it with the councillors and officers?

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Cabinet (Wirral Council) 10th October 2013 Cllr Phil Davies “we’re not out the woods yet by any means”

Cllr Phil Davies said, “OK so that takes us on now to item four, the err Statement of Accounts for 2012/13.

Errm, again, errm this err, I think these Statement of Accounts have been to Audit and Risk Management Committee, err err, but the thing that err again I want to draw your attention to is in paragraph 2.10, clearly this is a report that relates to 12/13, the statement of accounts relates to 12/13, err when we had a number of errm pretty err you know big challenges err on errm to you know address. Not least errm a £17 million overspend from the previous administration errm which you know which was a huge challenge and again I think it reflects the distance that we’ve travelled, that we’ve addressed that and later in the financial monitoring report we’re actually reporting an underspend now in the first few months of this year which is err great.

Errm but I think the the the paragraph 2.10, errm Grant Thornton err recognise the progress made by the Council during 12/13 with the direction of travel being rated as amber, errm so I think that’s, err we’re not out of the woods yet by any means, but I think that’s encouraging errm external validation if you like of the progress that we’ve made, so I think that’s very welcome.

So I don’t really want to say much more than that except to say that we’re err being asked to note the Statement of Accounts err and the audit report by Grant Thornton and that errm at 12.2 progress on delivering the actions identified in the audit findings report will be monitored by Audit and Risk Management Committee. So can we agree those recommendations?”

Cabinet: “Agreed”

Cllr Phil Davies: “OK, very good thank you.”

Ed – although Cllr Phil Davies refers to a £17 million overspend which he blames on the previous Conservative/Lib Dem administration, this wasn’t an overspend but a projected overspend of £17 million, which after a spending freeze reduced to £4.7 million. The Labour Cabinet in October 2012, after the projected overspend of £17 million was known, agreed to extra spending (beyond what was in the 2012/13 budget) of £700,000.

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Why is there a £17k to £19k discrepancy in allowances and expenses for councillors on Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority?

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Cabinet (Wirral Council) 10th October 2013 Cllr Phil Davies “we’re not out the woods yet by any means”

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