Panel recommends cutting Telford councillors’ pay
Thursday 30th September 2010, 11:16AM BST.
An independent panel has recommended cutting the overall amount Telford & Wrekin Council pays its councillors, it was revealed today.
The findings of a review by the Independent Renumeration Panel propose lopping £9,500 off the £663,774 total the authority pays its councillors and co-opted members each year.
A handful of allowances for councillors with particular responsibilities would either be reduced or increased under the plan but the panel has recommended the basic payment of £7,583 is frozen for each of the remaining councillors.
The pay freeze could last until the next review due in four to five years time.
The recommendations come from a panel chaired by Professor Steve Leach, professor of Local Government at De Montfort University, Leicester.
His report says the basic allowance to councillors of £7,583 a year is in line with the average paid to councillors of a similar size and recommends it be frozen.
It also recommends for other positions where councillors receive a “special responsibility allowance” that too is frozen.
The panel does, however, suggest cutting the amount paid to chairmen of scrutiny committees. The top chairman gets £10,624 while the five others receive £7,870.
It is proposed, however, to increase the amount paid to the two minority opposition group leaders on the council.
It is further suggested the amount paid to the independent chairman of standards, who is not a councillor, be halved, from £7,870 to £3,935.
Council spokesman Nigel Newman said: “The review seeks to take account of the difficult economic conditions facing all councils and changes in the council’s scrutiny arrangements.”
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Good housekeeping begins at home. The councillors should have voluntarily offered to cut their allowance by 10% and voted for a freeze prior to this report.
Alas, there will be a plethor of reasons why they haven’t.
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Prior to the recession we entered the credit crunch, it was at this point we all started feeling the financial pinch, yet the Conservative led council voted to increase councillors allowances.
Even those that voted against the allowance increase still accepted the extra cash, not one had the courage or courtesy to say no despite voting against it.
Any freezes to councillors “pay” should’ve happened along time ago.
Maybe, we will start getting more people running for council and getting elected who want to do it for the right reasons rather than the cash. We aiready have a few of these, we just need alot more.
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The 2000 Local Government Act (LABOUR) has a lot to answer for. It banned attendance allowance for meetings and replaced it with the allowance.
Many Shropshire Councillors are finding that the number of meetings they are asked to attend, or required to attend, most of which, if not all are held in the daytime, means that anyone trying to hold down a full time job is struggling for time off.
Planning meetings are held every 2 weeks with site inspections in the morning – thats potentially 24 days to start with. Add on 6-8 council meetings – again held during the day, and you are up to 30+ days already.
And Shropshire has a budget of 600 million – not easy for the Cabinet members to manage that and do a full time job as well.
I gather that Telford meetings are held in the evenings so maybe its a lot easier for Telford Councillors to combine earning a living AND being a councillor at the same time.
If however you would like to try it at the next elections, with an promise of not taking a single penny in allowances – good luck to you.
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I did run for election and did promise not to take a single penny in allowances or any other payment and i’d be more than happy to do it again.
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I was always (mistakenly it seems) under the impression that councillors were supposed to be unpaid. I’ve certainly nothing against councillors being fully reimbursed for their out-of-pocket expenses, travel etc. and perfectly happy for them to be provided with reasonable refreshements during lengthy council sessions, but must we pay them what amount to pretty significant salaries?
There were a number of councillors in the recently published list
(http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2010/06/24/telford-wrekin-councillors-expenses-published)
who seemed to get the equivalent of a good salary, on top of, in many cases, their full time job outside of the council – I can recall for example a husband and wife team getting in excess of £30k in allowances annually – what for?
Some of them also seemed to have access to a council pension scheme – shouldn’t this be restricted to the (usually far lower-paid) employees?
I find myself questioning the motives of councillors who choose to take such large amounts of money – wouldn’t we have a better quality and more honestly motivated set of councillors if we weren’t to pay them what are effectively salaries?
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it should be linked to the pay of the lowest worker/ cleaner – if they cut staff pay they should cut the members pay at the same rate
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Well said Peter #3
It’s a pity councillors cannot be elected on the basis of financial security and proven business acumen,(maybe successful retired folk) this way we ensure they are doing it for the good of the community they serve with a true talent that brings something to the table.
Another gravy train that needs knocking off it’s rails.
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Careful Andrew – wise and experienced as many retired people are, would we really want all our councillors to be 60+? As a 28 year old, I would be a little uneasy about all the decisions effecting my tax, local services etc to be made by such a narrow section of the population which, it could be argued, has little appreciation of my circumstances or those of many others.
In practice it will often be retired people who become councillors because they have the time, but we shouldn’t encourage them to be the ONLY ones who step forward – hence the need for allowances.
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Don’t get too excited, folks.
I’m pretty certain that hell will freeze before councillors’ payments do.
There again, it did feel a bit nippy in Brookside early this morning.
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5 # Andrew [on the basis of financial security and proven business acumen,(maybe successful retired folk)]
A very large number of councillors are early retired teachers and though they may have the assets of being used to speaking in public and egos to match I would not rate them as having any business acumen.
What you also get for your ‘public service’ is accesss to the council’s legal advisors, necessary when you are busy manipulating matters for personal interest.
You also get the opportunity to dress up like a t***** and that must be a real pull.
I really believe that nobody should be able to serve more than 10 years as that is what leads to corruption.
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I look forward to seeing all those who have posted here stading for election next time around – maybe they could stand for their local Parish Council where there are usually vacancies.
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For once, Eva, you talk a lot of sense.
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Oeswestrian, planning meetings are monthly and used to be in the evening in Shrewsbury which suited the public too. Members of the public are allowed to attend but only speak in a limited capacity whereas councillors can drone on with all sorts of drivel usually with a hidden agenda/political purpose.
I remember reading a while back in the Star that Councillor Barrow’s son had only attended 3 out of 14 meetings but still received his £3,500 per annum allowance.
I think that religion and pomp should be taken out of this rather archaic role and maybe politics too although councillors are pretty apolitical when it comes to scratching each others backs in my experience.
I always talk sense roadrunner, you know that really!
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As always some are worth every penny others are not worth washers .What does need looking at is that there are people who draw around £8000 for being chairs of various committees and perhaps only have four meetings a year others do a lot more . Do we need so many councillors?, in one Telford ward one councillor has managed to do the work of another councillor who has hardly been in Telford the last four years .I believe savings of £200,000 should be the target and not a miserly £9500 off a figure of over £600,000 .
No doubt there will be the usual screams but we need to consider the fact that the basic figure paid is more than a weeks pension and the chair allowances are about one and a half times an old age pension .
Another thing to consider some are also serving on other bodies such as the police authority .One of Telfords councillors gets £15,500 for being on the police authority and Telfords other rep on the authority although not a councillor gets £11,500 .People are not always aware of the other perks and that is what they are .Dave Barnett
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roadrunner. I totally agree with you agreeing with eva.
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hear hear
most of these people are unqualified lay people who i appreciate the role of for democracy but it doesnt need a salary just expenses, its a part time role attending lots of evening meetings and just signing off on decisions where all the work has been done for them in advance by officers
there needs to be a radical overhaul in the uk to cut democracy costs which is why even though i dont vote for them i fully endorse the coalition cuts to the number of mps and the culling of the house of lords i think local councils who need to make cuts should focus first on the top, management and democracy costs are too high
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