The Stormont assembly risks “putting the fox in the chicken run” by allowing former members to join the board that sets MLAs’ wages and pensions.
Pat McCartan, who was part of the panel that previously determined MLAs’ salaries and expenses, told The Irish News that many of financial oversight arrangements Stormont’s five biggest parties are planning to introduce “run totally contrary to all the standards of public life”.
He also dismissed the suggestion that MLAs should receive salaries equivalent to their counterparts in Westminster, Dáil Eireann and other devolved legislatures.
Stormont MLAs currently receive annual salaries of £52,500, while MSPs in the Scottish Parliament are paid £72,197 and members of Welsh Senedd £72,057.
“MLAs duties are not as wide in scope, they don’t have the same depth in terms of responsibility, so there is no basis for parity based on the current duties and responsibilities of our assembly members,” he said.
Mr McCartan said MLAs each represented an average of around 20,000 people, while their counterparts in Wales each represented 50,000.
However, the former member of the Independent Financial Review Panel, which determined MLAs’ salaries and expenses up to 2016, said he believed Stormont representatives were entitled to a 12.5% increase, which would take their annual pay to £59,500.
The Assembly Members (Remuneration Board) Bill that was tabled earlier this week is one of just nine items of legislation that have been brought to the assembly floor in the past year.
Backed by the Assembly Commission, that body which runs the regional legislature and is overseen by the chief whips from the main parties, it has been claimed the move could see MLAs’ salaries increase by almost 30%.
Mr McCartan, a former chair of the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and the Labour Relations Agency, said it would be “quite inappropriate” to permit former MLAs to sit on the new board.
“It’s the equivalent of putting the fox in the chicken run,” he said.
“A former member could influence the level of their own pension payments and other benefits for people who are still in the assembly or working for an MLA – I think that’s quite inappropriate.”
People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll said the five main parties had demonstrated their priorities by introducing a “piece of legislation that’s very likely to feather their own nests”.
“This bill not only enables MLAs to determine their own allowances and expenses, as well as those of their former colleagues, but also opens the door for former MLAs to join the Remuneration Board,” he sad.
TUV MLA Timothy Gaston said: “Many people will draw their own conclusions from the fact that while there is a distinct lack of legislation on the issues which matter to the public, MLAs have been able to find the time to construct a bill of this nature in their own selfish interests.”
