November meeting of Cumbria County Council

 Cumbria County Council will meet online at 10 am on Thursday 5th November.

The meeting will be live-streamed and the agenda plus link to watch the meeting can be found on the council website at

https://councilportal.cumbria.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=123&MId=10676&Ver=4

Most of the items on the agenda are reports. 

There is one issue which might possibly have been contentious had it proposed any change - the annual review of allowances payable to councillors - but in fact the recommendation of the independent panel is that the basic allowance paid to all county councillors, the Special responsibility allowance paid to county cabinet members and other senior councillors with specific responsibilities, and the travel allowances should not be changed. 

The only amendment proposed is to change the Dependent Carers allowance to the National Minimum Wage from April 2021 and subsequently uprate the cap on it in line with changes in the National Minimum Wage.

I would expect these recommendations to be approved unanimously - there is no justification for any increase in councillors' allowances at this time. The total cost to the taxpayer of councillors' allowances is in fact likely to drop dramatically this year because none of us are travelling from all over the county to get to council meetings as they are all now being held online. So there should be very few if any travel allowance claims.



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