Reduction in conference budgets

Addressing the decision during a recent Corporate Services meeting, councillors also voted to revised the procedures for appointing members to attend conferences.

The report explained: 'Arising from Council's decision to reduce members conference budget in 2010-2011 options for revision of existing policy, have been identified by the Chief Executive, as follows, and are presented for members consideration.

'The current procedure where members are allocated an individual budget each year for attending conferences and choose these from an approved list was introduced several years ago and has worked fairly well, drawing no complaints from members or adverse comments from the LG Auditor.

'Over recent years the total budget for conference attendance has fallen considerably and with the latest reduction to 3,000 for 2010/11 council asked that an alternative procedure be proposed.'

Five options were suggested: Option 1 Do nothing – retain current system. Divide up budget (3000) at 187.50 per member and continue as now, where members select conferences from list; Option 2 Divide the budget among parties in accordance with party strengths; parties decide which conferences are attended and who goes. Other aspects of the current procedure stay as at present; Option 3 Divide the budget over the four standing committees (750 each); delegate to each committee power to decide the conferences to attend and the number and names of the delegates; Option 4 Allocate the total budget of 3000 to Corporate & Central Services committee and delegate to the committee power to decide the conferences to attend, and the number and names of the delegates and Option 5 Allocate the total budget of 3000 to Corporate & Central Services Committee and delegate to the committee power to decide the conferences to attend and how many delegates to send. Leave the decision on which councillors are to be the delegates to Council.

The report continued: 'With a much-reduced budget the current procedures will struggle to cope with managing the budget and multiple transfers to budgets among members will be needed to permit attendance at conferences outside Ireland. Some change is indicated and of the options presented, numbers 2 or 5 seem to offer the best prospects for ready control of the budget and input by all councillors into the process. As with many decisions in council it may not be possible to reach consensus on every conference decision, but option 5 ensures that all councillors have equal input into choosing which members are delegated to attend conferences.

'If any one of options 3-5 is chosen, it is also necessary to introduce an arrangement whereby members apply to attend and the requests are considered. It is assumed that there should be the same opportunity to attend conferences occurring in the last quarter of the year as in the first, so some measure to ration the budget is required. It is suggested that this could be achieved by quarterly decisions on conferences for the following three months, with the budget being split into equal quarters (750). Any unexpended portion would be carried forward to later quarters in the year (but not beyond year end).

'Additional flexibility could be provided if there was a provision in any quarter to exceed the budget of 750 by up to, say, a further 250, with the budget shortfall being recouped by reducing the allocations to succeeding quarters. Obviously this would not apply to the final quarter in the year. Alternatively, members may feel that it is sufficient to have two calls in the year and spilt the budget into equal halves, with or without some provision to borrow from the second half, if the first half year budget is oversubscribed.

'It is recommended that for conferences occurring after 1 April 2010, the committee makes a recommendation to council of a revised procedure for conference attendance and the current arrangements for conference attendance are terminated.'

A discussion then ensued among members.

However it was proposed by Cllr Ian Stevenson, seconded by Cllr Anita Cavlan that Council adopt Option 4: allocate the total budget of 3,000 to Corporate & Central Services committee and delegate to the committee power to decide the conferences to attend, and the number and names of the delegates; based on members making applications to the OCE and the budget being managed and monitored in 2 x 6 monthly tranches.

It was noted that it was Council policy for members to report on conference attendance.