Sensible move in Scotland to end bonus payments for Returning Officers

Sensible news from Scotland:

Extra payments to returning officers for overseeing elections should be scrapped, according to Holyrood’s local government committee.

MSPs have held an inquiry into the system, which sees highly-paid council chief executives receive extra pay for running elections and referendums…

MSPs also heard that some officials can claim two payments for Scottish Parliament elections, as they can be returning officers for both constituency and regional list votes.

The role of Returning Officer is certainly an important one. It is also, however, one that goes automatically with certain local authority jobs. This is not a case of people volunteering to do extra work, for which payment would be sensible, but people doing a task which is known about in advance as part of their day job and much of which is carried out during normal office hours.

What’s more, these payments have often been problematic, including the way they’ve been increased without anyone even costing the increase first and the long tradition, finally fraying, of paying people in full no matter how badly they do the role, even to the extent of failing to meet their legal obligations.