New scrutiny body to come at a cost of £2,000

Councillors have agreed to form a new committee to scrutinise Shropshire Fire & Rescue Service and pay whoever chairs the body a ‘special responsibility allowance’ of £2,259.

Flaws in the governance of the fire service was one of the areas criticized by inspectors from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) when they reported at the end of 2024.

The fire service is going through a process of ticking off a multitude of areas where the Shropshire service was criticized by the HMICFRS.

Councillor David Minnery (Liberal Democrats, Market Drayton West) who chairs Shropshire & Wrekin Fire Authority, said the current arrangements are so bad that the chairman and vice chairman “don’t know what’s going on.”

He said: “The chair and the vice-chair sit on different committees and we don’t know what’s going on.”

Councillors on Shropshire and Wrekin Fire Authority were called on to discuss the issues at an extraordinary meeting at Shrewsbury Fire Station on Thursday (April 17).

They also approved the start of a search for two independent members of the scrutiny committee.

And an invitation will be sent out to trades unions to join in the process.

Councillor Garry Burchett (Conservative, Bagley) wanted the training of councillors to be “compulsory” before they can sit on the scrutiny committee.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to vote until they have been trained,” he said.

But Councillor Roger Evans (Liberal Democrats, Longden) said he thought that might be “challengeable”.

“Members could say ‘so what’ if they are elected. We can recommend but I think we can’t say that they can’t vote,” he said.

The committee was told that legally there “are ways around it” which could include officer support.

Councillor Minnery said the “responsibility should be on political group leaders” to ensure that they nominate appropriate councillors to become members of the fire authority.

On payments to whoever chairs the body, officers said that councillors “must have due regard to the recommendations made by an Independent Remuneration Panel. 

“The last report of the IRP was presented to Fire Authority on  June  24 2020 and, as the role of Chair of Scrutiny was not in contemplation at that time, no recommendation was made as to the Special Responsibility Allowance such a role should attract,” the officer report said.

“That being the case, it is reasonable to suggest that the role is analogous with the chairs of the other two committees and, therefore, should attract the same allowance.”

They added that this was the “sole financial implication arising from the report” and can be met “from existing budgets.”

Councillors agreed to set up the scrutiny committee with final details of the five councillors who will serve on it, who will chair it, and its terms of reference to be approved at the annual meeting in June.