Western mail - Jan 31 2007
The man in line to be Swansea's next Lord Mayor has come under fire for threatening to disrupt council business because he is facing a pay cut.
Ioan Richard, an independent councillor who represents his home village of Craigcefnparc on Swansea City and County Council, is the current Deputy Lord Mayor and chair of the Licensing Committee.
Since 2004 the council has had a Liberal Democrat-led administration. But following the recent decision of the Conservative group to leave the administration, the Liberal Democrats and their allies - including Mr Richard - are losing their places as committee chairs. For Mr Richard this will mean a pay cut from £21,601 to £11,940.
It has now emerged that in an email sent to some of his council colleagues last week, Mr Richard complained bitterly about his loss of income and proposed a scheme that would involve sabotaging each committee meeting with an election for a new chair and deputy chair every time.
In his email, Mr Richard says, "Trench warfare - are you up for it? I am seriously in favour of it!!!! ... This will mean that at the very next committee - and if we continue the process every committee thereafter into the future - will have on its agenda for the start of every meeting the election of a chairman and vice chairman.
"This has enormous implications of inconvenience to Labour and Tories and Plaid Cymru. It means they will have to muster up a majority at every committee. If not, we take the chair and vice chair back for a three or four-week cycle. If we succeed only once in five goes, we will get 20% of their Special Responsibility Allowance, eg 20% of a chair's £9,000 is £1,800 - an amount not to be scoffed at, and it will really inconvenience the other lot and annoy them enormously. It really would cause them very serious havoc problems and give us back a couple of thousand pounds a year ... I know I am going to seriously miss my chairman's allowance as my pension is very small.
"If I don't do this I'm going to go back part-time casual supply teaching for £140 per day for a five-hour day... if I cannot claw back some of my allowance I will have to get some extra money from somewhere."
David Phillips, the council's Labour opposition leader, said, "This is an extraordinary admission by Ioan Richard. It confirms what I have been saying for a long time - that special responsibility allowances were the glue that held together the disparate group of councillors who form the administration.
"If Ioan Richard's tactic of electing new committee chairs at each meeting is followed, it will create chaos."
Darren Price, leader of the council's Plaid Cymru group, said, "This doesn't reflect well on Ioan Richard or on the council as a whole. Electing a new chair at every meeting would create chaos and damage the scrutiny process."
