The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7404 p700
10 June 2006

Society summary

Council attendance fee should need AGM approval

The Society's Council should have to seek the approval of an annual general meeting before increasing the ceiling on attendance fees payable to Council members, the branch representatives' meeting decided.

The proposer, John Balmford (Cheltenham and Gloucester), said that, as the result of a recent Byelaw amendment, Council members’ attendance fees were no longer restricted by a ceiling approved by the Privy Council. Advisers to the Privy Council had suggested that the level of fees should be a matter for the Society’s own members rather than for the Privy Council and the Council had obtained a Byelaw amendment to the effect that Council members were now paid a “reasonable” fee determined by the Council itself.

Mr Balmford said that he had opposed the proposed change on the ground that it did not conform with the Privy Council view that the level of fee should be determined by the membership rather than the Council. When the Council subsequently confirmed the Byelaw amendment it announced that any future change in the attendance fee would be gazetted in an Official Notice in The Pharmaceutical Journal.

But how many members read and understood the gazetting process and how many would write to object to a proposal? His branch thought that any alteration to the fees should be taken to an AGM, where the pharmacists present can express their views and discuss any proposed increase.

Previous BRMs and AGMs had expressed concern at the sums paid to members of Council. The accounts for 2004 showed a total of £428,000 paid to Council members and in 2005 the total was £480,000. It was essential that somebody keep a check on how much money is being claimed by Council members. If the Privy Council is not prepared to set the limits to these fees, then it should be the members who determine them, and the only sensible occasion is at the AGM.

Seconding, Paul Pibworth (Cheltenham and Gloucester) said that for a financial transaction to be completely transparent the decision had to be taken in public by the Society’s members and then published clearly.