Andy Mitchell
Local Democracy Reporting Service
BBC
George Finch says existing staff have been unable to bring about change
The interim leader of Warwickshire County Council has put forward plans to hire political assistants at a cost of up to £190,000 a year.
An assistant would serve each of the three largest parties on the council – Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.
George Finch, leader of Reform, which is running the authority as a minority administration, said it was necessary because council staff have been “unable to help come up with the imaginative ideas” to resolve key issues.
The Lib Dems, Labour and Green Party oppose the idea. Lib Dem leader Jerry Roodhouse said money should be “spent on front-line services and not on political assistants”.
National legislation allows councils to employ up to three people for this role, one for each of the authority’s three largest groups, providing they have at least 10% of the seats available.
An assistant’s role is to “undertake research and provide administrative support to members of political groups in the discharge of any of their [council] functions”.
While they would be restricted in what they could say, they are allowed to “speak to the public with the intention of affecting support for a political party” and publish material intended to gain support for a political party.
Taken together, the full salary range for these jobs would be between £151,000 and £190,000.
Finch, 19, will present his proposals at a full council meeting on Tuesday, when a vote will also be held to decide if he should become leader of the council.
If he was confirmed in the role, he would be among the youngest in that position in the country and, in Warwickshire, oversee a budget of half a billion pounds along with council assets worth £1.5bn.
Two weeks ago, the Reform UK cabinet unanimously accepted principles set out in the council’s medium-term financial plan, which included the assertion that it would “be necessary to set a very high bar for new permanent budget allocations”.
Disagreement over plans
In a statement, Finch said: “For years, the council administration has relied on the corporate policy team to come up with the innovative ideas required to shepherd Warwickshire through the crises we face.
“We’ve found this team to be unable to bring about the change we were elected for.”
He said the council needed a “fresh, bold approach to policy creation”.
But Roodhouse said: “I would rather spend £150,000 on family support workers or something that is useful in the community.”
Green Party group leader Jonathan Chilvers said he was “very surprised” by the proposal and added: “Their claim to voters was that they would cut ‘wasteful’ council spending, and yet their very first proposal does the exact opposite.”
Labour group leader Sarah Feeney said: “Given that we are at a time when there are massive cuts to services to balance the books, this seems like an unnecessary expense.”
The Conservative group said it had not yet made up its mind on the proposals.
Update 18 July: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the job roles could cost up to £190,000 each, rather than in total