Board and committee members at Staffordshire housing group to be paid £7.5k - for work they currently do for free

The Stafford and Rural Homes (SARH) board is made up of people with a variety of jobs at firms across the county.

The roles are voluntary but bosses argue that more is being expected of them than ever before. So proposals have been drawn up for them to get annual pay.

Final amounts have not yet been agreed, but a report says other organisations pay around £7,500 to the chairman of the board, £5,000 for the vice chairman and £4,500 for the chairman of a committee. Research will be done 'to establish appropriate levels of payment, taking account of the role and responsibility relative to the size of the organisation and current levels of payment made by other organisations', the report states.

Stafford Borough Council, which works with SARH, needs to approve the plans at a meeting on November 25 before they can go ahead.

But the council has insisted it will not contribute taxpayers' money to the payments.

The chairman of the SARH board is Kevin Upton, who is also head of finance at the Aspire housing group. Board members originally agreed that their roles would be unpaid and they would receive only out of pocket expenses.

The report to the council states: "During the first five years much of the work of SARH was focused on delivering the promises made to customers. However, increasingly SARH is now operating in a more challenging and complex environment, which involves not only running the traditional landlord business, but also developing new homes and setting up trading subsidiaries.

"The trading subsidiaries, unlike SARH, are not registered with the Charity Commission and are commercial companies that trade for profit.

"The environment in which the SARH Group works and the challenges it faces means that it is imperative that the parent and subsidiaries are led by board members with the appropriate range of skills and experience. Account must also be taken of the need to avoid where possible, any actual or perceived conflict of interest.

"SARH is therefore seeking agreement to introduce payment to ensure that the board and committees remain fit for purpose and provide effective governance and can attract different sets of skills."