Emails released following a freedom of information request show that the research company 4insight has been employed to run focus groups with States Members and the public about what politicians get paid.
But after being invited to attend such an event and share his views on States Members’ remuneration, backbencher Deputy Jeremy Maçon hit back at the process and called for the body which makes
recommendations about States Members’ pay to be sacked.
It has also been revealed that the States Members’ Remuneration Body has been instructed not to ‘progress any kind of pay claim, especially not publicly, while the States remain in dispute over pay with their workforce’.
States Members are currently paid £46,600 a year, a salary which has been frozen for a number of years.
In emails to his colleagues on the Privileges and Procedures Committee and copied in to the Greffier of the States and his deputy, Deputy Maçon claims that the SMRRB does not understand what many politicians do, particularly backbenchers. He says: ‘The [sic] are obsessed with differential pay and don’t care a jot about constituency work who, at the end of the day, are the people we serve.’
He adds that the board’s ‘incompetence’ is ‘unbelievable’ and says that they are wasting public money by commissioning the 4insight research in the current format.
Deputy Maçon instead calls for the board to consult with politicians first to properly understand what they do and help to inform the questions they then put to the public.
Addressing PPC chairman Deputy Russell Labey in an email sent on 20 February, Deputy Maçon says: ‘Russel [sic] – sack them as clearly they have an agenda and are not independent this is survey monkey part 2 and the board has learnt nothing!’
He adds: ‘Hand it over to a professional HR person as clearly this board are not up to scratch!’
An email from SMRRB chairman Gerald White has also been released, in which he tells Deputy Labey that the States
Greffe has contracted 4insight on behalf of the board to carry out a professional survey of public opinion later this year
and will invite States Members to participate in a specific version of the same survey.
The results of the surveys will, he says, help to inform the body’s report due to be presented to PPC towards the end of the year.
Deputy Labey also replies to Deputy Maçon and his other panel members and says ‘Jeremy has a valid point’. He also suggests calling an emergency meeting of PPC to discuss the matter.
He says: ‘How confident are we that the body itself has appraised itself, finally, of States Members’ hours and duties? Did anyone get a questionnaire? Embarking on this process with the public at a time when we are still in the middle of an angry pay dispute is nuts.’
Deputy Maçon adds that he does not have a problem with the board seeking informed public opinion but it should be done once they are fully informed about what States Members do.
In 2017 the SMRRB recommended that the Chief Minister’s salary be increased to almost £54,000 – a pay rise of 15% – while other politicians’ salaries remain at £46,600. However, a tied vote on the matter in the States with 20 votes in favour, 20 against and two abstentions meant that the proposal was defeated.
The history
Up until 1969 being a States Member was an honorary position.
Following concerns that it meant only the well-off could afford to be a politician, the first salary payments were made in 1969 after nine failed attempts to get a scheme started from 1955 onwards.
The first means-tested payment scheme included a £750 allowance with provision for a couple’s joint earnings of up to £1,500 before any reimbursement was required.
That system remained mostly unchanged for 22 years – apart from the introduction of an expense allowance initially set at £250 and an annual increase set by the average of the cost of living and wage increases – and by 1990 the scheme included payment of £6,000 and an expense allowance of £2,000.
In 1991 a working party of non-States Members successfully recommended reform of the scheme.
Their new scheme provided an income support allowance of £10,000, an expense allowance of £8,000 and a £5,000 income ceiling above which the main allowance had to be paid back on a pound-for-pound basis.
In 1995, the system was changed again to allow Members to claim back Social Security contributions and by 1996 there were 20 out of 53 States Members claiming some money from a scheme that provided an allowance of £14,500, an expenses allowance of £8,000 and an income ceiling of £6,250 before some money had to be paid back.
By 1998 a new independent committee had recommended a scheme with a maximum payment of £24,000 along with £8,000 in automatically paid expenses, along with an £8,000 limit on income from other sources before the main payment was reduced.
In 2000, the annual cost of States Members pay was put at £1.1 million.
In 2004, as the job of being a States Member increasingly became a full-time one, the ‘means test’ was scrapped, meaning that all Members – regardless of their income from other sources – were being paid the same amount.
In the same year, a proposition led to the creation of a States Members Remuneration Review Body of independent members, which makes recommendations about politicians’ pay.
