Council Expenses - Now and Then
07 July 2011 by HamstMuch has been reported about North Lincolnshire Councillors expenses & claims over recent months and Thoades has covered this extensively producing various articles even producing an attendance chart showing who gives value for money.
How Hard Do Your Councillors Work
http://www.visitscunthorpe.com/ScunthorpeNews/Headline/How-Hard-do-your-Councillors-Work
Council Attendance
http://www.visitscunthorpe.com/ScunthorpeNews/Headline/Council-Attendance
Back in 1975 it was reported that thirty seven out of the 41 members of Scunthorpe Borough Council had claimed a total of £5,378 for the financial year 1974-75, four of them, three Labour and one Conservative had not claimed a penny.
Finance chairman, Alec Moore claimed this was lower than any of the neighbouring boroughs, appealing for publication of the figures for Grimsby and Cleethorpes.
Looking at the Scunthorpe Borough Council figures shows allowances for attendance and financial loss came to £5,977.85 from which £1,808.10 tax was deducted leaving a net figure of £4,169.75. In addition there was subsidence and travelling expenses of £1,208.40 bringing the total net paid to £5,378.15.
The amounts paid to councillors ranged from £420 down to £11.
Conservative councillor Fed Dring was one of those who had not claimed a penny who asked why the figures had not been broken down individually and collectively.
“I fail to see why we should not have the gross amount individually and collectively,” he declared.
Councillor Moore said, “the Treasurer had presented the figures in the form decided by the council itself, if Coun Dring wanted a different format he should raise the matter at the next meeting of the Finance and General Purpose Committee.”
He continued, “Coun Dring was entitled not to claim anything if he so wished to but he thought his party colleagues who had claimed would rebuke him for raising the issue”
It was also added that Glanford Borough Councillors had claimed very much higher expenses and allowances, even with fewer members.
Coun Dring retorted, “I don’t think people who take part in public life should expect to be paid for their services. They should know it’s going to cost them money and be prepared to accept it.”
He said he treated council work as an interesting hobby.
It’s of interest to note that for the year 2010-11 each councillor on North Lincolnshire Council received a basic allowance of £7,638, an individual figure far greater than the whole amount claimed by Scunthorpe Borough Council back in 1974-75. Indeed a councillor today can claim much more travel and subsistence allowance, special responsibility allowance and dependants’ carers allowance, etc.
Records show that for 2008-9 councillors claimed a total of £550,410.47 whilst the figure for 2009-10 was £552,850.45
Is it right councillors today a rewarded handsomely for what they do, should they be able to just claim for 'out of pocket' expenses or do you believe Coun Fred Dring was right in what he said?
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Comments
I guess it depends if you consider £7,000 a year to be "rewarded handsomely". That's £3.36 an hour for a 40-hr week, half the minimum wage. I think too many people get caught up in MPs expenses and assume everyone has a nose in the trough, claims for a moat and a duck house.
Thoades - if no-one was paid you would end up with retired, rich men. It would make it far, far worse in terms of representation than it is now. I can't believe anyone would genuinely believe people want to be a councillor for the money. You could almost certainly earn more money on the dole!
Very partisan Glad, if as you say your self, people don't want to be councilors for the money then why not agree with my suggestion that the basic allowance is scrapped and councilors are paid out of pocket expenses only?
I don't think it's partisan, just my opinion. Would you work a 40-hr week for nothing? I wouldn't! There's a saying 'if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys'. Some people may argue we have monkeys in charge now! But I personally believe the quality of councillors would get far, far worse and you'd be left with those who can afford to do it, doing it.
There will always be argument for either just out of pocket expenses only or or a standard allowance, personally I favour the latter on the basis it can be considered all encompassing and how the individual chooses to use it is entirely up to them but once it is gone then its gone end of, for that financial period. This would also indirectly help encourage councillors to better plan the more "routine" elements of their work on a weekly basis, though I except their may be the odd occasion when duty would call when not expected however that would be realistically covered within their allowance rate. There would be one exception to that rule and that is if a councillor needed to go on council business outside of the county boundary, this should be dealt with on a separate basis using the current civil service schemes reduced hotel rate booking system, the issuing of rail warrants and petty cash recompense (on a receipt proof basis for taxi/underground or bus use).
Another plus would be that councillors wouldn't be given a "limitless purse" to fund claiming as there would be with a pure "out of pocket expenses only" for of financial redress. Also with this system as it stands at the moment, a councillor in theory could go to pitwood house every day for an hour or two, make the relevant current legal claim five times that week for doing so at the expense of the taxpayer, when had the councillor been on a yearly standard allowance only they may have condensed their scheduling into either just one or two days to keep their cost down (knowing they were limited to a certain amount).
Another point for which I will probably shot to pieces for but it needs to be said, I work for a civil service agency along side a lot of people who have small children and babies who don't get an allowance for "care" reasons and yet they still do their job on the understanding that it is their choice to do and to have children. As a result they acknowledge it is their responsibility to address any care issues including cost - not the taxpayers. Therefore the question needs to be asked, how is this justified in relation to Councillors a role also taken on by choice.
Finally the one thing I would say that everyone with thoughts and any knowledge on this subject would probably agree with and that is as council tax payers we all agree that the remuneration package for councillors in general needs a severe overall and not just "tinkered" with at the edges as we have recently seen locally.
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