Council allowances bill totals £669,000
Tuesday 16th June 2009, 4:18PM BST.
Shirehall councillors claimed “pay” totalling more than £669,000 last year, new figures show.
All 48 members of the former Shropshire County Council claimed a basic allowance of £7,565.
But many were also able to claim special responsibility allowances and travel and subsistence payments. The highest total amount – £39,713 – went to Conservative council leader Malcolm Pate.
In addition to his basic allowance, Councillor Pate claimed £27,572 in responsibility allowances as leader and travel and subsistence of £4,575.
Lib Dem opposition leader Peter Phillips claimed a total of £25,890 and Labour group leader Alan Mosley £20,947.
Cabinet members and allowances claimed were: Joyce Barrow (£21,286), Barbara Craig (£24,100), John Everall (£20,530), Anne Hartley (£26,816), John Hurst-Knight (£22,442), Peter Nutting (£18,792), Gerald Dakin (£21,842), and Mike Owen (£18,792).
Council chairman Brian Gillow claimed £21,302.
Allowances are based on the principles that no member should be out of pocket for undertaking their duties, and that the level of allowances should not act as a “disincentive” to anyone wishing to stand for election.
Shirehall spokesman Simon Alton said that every council had to give members allowances by law and the level of allowances for Shropshire was recommended by an independent remuneration panel.
He said the panel fully researched the allowances scheme before making its recommendations.
The rates for the new Shropshire Council have also been recommended by the panel.
The authority’s 74 members will be able to claim a basic £12,000 and the leader a further £24,000.
The figures were overwhelmingly agreed by the former county council earlier this year. There were no objections but three councillors abstained from voting.
One of them, Peter Corston, said that he was unhappy that the issue was being considered at a time of economic problems.
He was not saying that the allowances were unfair but he wondered what “message” was being sent out to the public when the number of jobless was rising and there was a growing number of house repossessions.
£1.2m is paid out in claims by councillors
More than £1.2 million was paid out last year in various allowances, to the elected members of Shropshire’s five former district and borough councils. The leaders made the highest claims.
The basic amount councillors could claim varied between the authorities but, as at the Shirehall, many were also entitled to special responsibility, and travel and subsistence payments.
Basic rates were: Bridgnorth District (£5,338), North Shropshire District (£3,614), Oswestry Borough (£3,579), Shrewsbury and Atcham (£6,856), and South Shropshire District (£3,534).
Most members of the county council also served on one of the five smaller authorities and which between them had nearly 200 councillors.
The top leader’s claim was Cecilia Motley (South Shropshire) at £24,633, followed by David Minnery (North Shropshire) £19,934, Peter Nutting (Shrewsbury and Atcham) £17,434, David Lloyd (Oswestry) £14,504 and Elizabeth Yeomans (Bridgnorth) £14,332.
Council total claims were: Bridgnorth £231,191, North Shropshire £231,106, Oswestry £163,257, Shrewsbury and Atcham £371,101 and South Shropshire £277,456.
By Dave Morris
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
40k just for turning up and spouting guff? Good riddance!
Report abuse
on par with the MPs
scandalous
sack them all
Report abuse
We have MEP’s, MP’s, AM’s (in Wales),County Councillors and on a local basis Town Councillors.
Do we need all these officials? I would say not as they all have to be paid for one way or another.
Report abuse
So the new 74 Shropshire County Councillors will each be given a basic allowance of £12, 000 per annum!
I think this is a disgrace.
How do they justify expenses of £1000 per month?
They presumably will also be able to further claim the mysterious special responsibilties allowance. With regard to the travel and subsistance payments some apparently do not need this at all and others claimed between £500 to £1,360.66!
An independant panel has recommended this doubling or quadrupling of the basic allowance for councillors but we are not told who makes up this panel and how they have decided upon this figure.
This allowance is tax free and the recipients are not subject to any kind of assessment as to the value they offer as paid members.
The concept originally was that nobody should be ‘out of pocket’ in their service to the community.
With the protection of the council legal department councillors are in a very privileged position indeed and those who have enjoyed this status for many years with SABC, IMO already often have far too much influence with council officers.
Report abuse
eve land and others
The allowances are not tax free, as for travel if you live out side the town every time you go to meetings or the office it is a 20 mile round trip and yes you need recipts and yes they are checked.
As for the legal department protecting Cllrs you realy should check your facts before spouting off.
Cllrs are regulated by the Stnadrds board of Great Britain which if MPs had the same system they would be struck off in no time.
I was a Cllr for 12 years took two of my working days per week as portfolio holder and God knows how much time at night. I recived about £12k P/A before tax but it costed me about £15K over this per year to have cover in the office. Since standing down I have removed this cover and saved the money so do not claim all Cllrs are in it for the money, some are but most are not. You could always get elected yourself and refuse you allowance but that is not likely is it ??
It seems that aany one who serves the community these days is a target, so is it surprising that we stuggle to get pepole involved or are peopole only happy being arm chair moaners.
Report abuse
This news is nothing – what’s it telling me – not a lot. Perhaps the special responsibility allowances and travel, and subsistence payments claims are appropriate – who knows? I don’t know what “special responsibility allowances” means and the article doesn’t say.
What useless Journalism – well done Dave Morris!
Report abuse
Don’t blame our individual councillors who undoubtedely put the hours in – blame the system they work under!
Having just returned from Europe I was struck by how much more effective local politics seems be there. We visited a small town that had its own Mayor (who was under 50!) and he was not just a ‘ceremonial’ figure. The key thing is that he was democratically elected and is paid to undertake this role. Everyone in the community knows who to go to if they have a concern or something they wish to see developed in their community. They can get things done without waiting for the cogs of National/Regional/Local Authority policies to turn! The downside to this is the power that one individual is given and in some countries this could be open to corruption etc…
I think the problem in the UK is we feel very detached from our local politicians and (maybe) vice-versa? As a young person I have no idea how I would communicate with my local councillor/what good it would do anyway! The average age of a local councillor after all is 57 – yes they perhaps have ‘wisdom’ but do they really care about our future – how can they?
It was only the recent elections combined with this visit that even prompted me to look into how our local political system works at all!
I believe the Conservatives are now advocating such reforms to our local government system for ‘larger towns’ and this is perhaps the only reason I would vote for them in a general election!
Report abuse
Firstly looking at the travel and subsistance allowance it is clear that those councillors living out of the town are making claims, quite rightly. There are anomalies with those living in Shrewsbury in their own wards where most do not claim at all yet some have made large claims.
Are these claims catalogued and open to scrutiny and by who?
If councillors do get caught outwith unacceptable behaviour and most know how to avoid that, then they are punished with further training not struck off!
If you speak to those who work as council officers or have done in the past then you know how much pressure can be applied by councillors. For the common good? Not necssarily, often for self interest or political manouvering.
Report abuse
What would be interesting is to get a list of ALL the ex district/Borough Councillors AND County Councillors – find out what each was paid from both and then publish the findings to see who was the most expensive councillor in Shropshire.
Mr Nutting for example got £17k from SABC and £18K from SCC – making £36K if you add the hundreds as well
Nice work if you can get it.
HOw about someone working on a Freedom of Information request and publishing the results?
Report abuse
Eve land
I had the largest travel costs in the concil one year at about £1200 mainly due to the fact that I was up and down to London resulting on extra funding of about 3 million.Even town members travel to location not always in the area. Officers are protected from undue influence by the code of conduct and if this is breached then the member can be struck off , suspended or retrained depending on the serverity of the case, at SABC the worst we had was to retrain members not because they gained from any breach but because they did not follow protocol.
If ,and please give an exsample, a member gains an advantage either politicaly or as a self gain this can be reported to the Standards board and dealt with that way so do not readily happen.
Members set the policy of a council and officers impliment that policy. Taking that it it is a political system than any policy will tend to reflect the politics of the group setting it.
Now I am not a member I can make these comments as a member I would not as it would be seen as a potential breach of the code of conduct.
If you have details of any breach share it with us all on this forum or do you just have an axe to grind?
Report abuse
I would not mind if they were exeptional individuals who brought innovation and value!
Nice arrangement for those who receive it!!
No justification at all
Report abuse