It’s a busy old time for Scotland’s returning officers. In the last two years there have been three polls - European, the independence referendum, a general election – while the Holyrood ballot is just a week away and the referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU follows shortly after on June 23.
Scotland’s 32 returning officers, who are almost always the chief executives of the local council, play an important role in overseeing democracy, of course. But do they really deserve to pocket £1.1 million between them for supervising five ballots? That’s what they will have earned by the time the result of the Brexit vote is known.
Among the highest earners is likely to be Glasgow City Council chief executive Annmarie O’Donnell, who will be paid in the region of £75,000 for overseeing three polls since her appointment in November 2014. That comes on top of her salary, which stands at around £180,000. Edinburgh’s returning officer, meanwhile, will receive around £90,000 for the five votes, with significant amounts also going to the leaders of North and South Lanarkshire, Fife, and Highland councils. To put this into context, £50,000 could buy you a primary headteacher.
Let’s be clear. These payments don’t come from the council purse, rather they are paid directly by the UK Government. And £1.1m is a drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of millions of pounds managed by the chief executives in the course of their day jobs.
But at a time when Scotland’s local authorities are under such extreme financial pressures, these payments do not sit well. Perception is important, especially when public services are being cut and workers such as street cleaners are being expected to accept reductions to their pay and conditions.
At a time when local authorities and their staff are being told to do more for less, is it really fair that their well-paid chief executives are awarded significantly more cash to do just a little extra work?
After all, as critics point out, returning officers are under no obligation to accept the extra payments. And, since the 2007 Holyrood election fiasco which saw more than 140,000 ballot papers rejected, procedures in Scotland have been tightened and professionalised. Elections are far more regular, with the exact dates often known years in advance. Once you’ve organised one ballot, you probably don’t have to change all that much for those that follow.
The head of the body that represents council chief executives counters that returning officers have a personal responsibility to ensure elections are run smoothly and in accordance with the law, and it is therefore right they are “appropriately” remunerated. Even he admits the system is “old-fashioned” and should be reviewed, however.
So, what should change? Could the payment be scrapped altogether and the role of returning officer written into the job description for local authority chief executives? Or perhaps the cash should be shared out among all those who work during elections? What’s most important, particularly during times of austerity, is the perception of fairness. It will be interesting to see how this is achieved.
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