A Brief Overview of Council Expenses

Following on from yesterday's article we've had lots of feedback and comments, so we thought it would be worth while putting together some attendance league tables for the councillors. There are a couple of issues which have risen from yesterday's article which we'll address now: 1 - The Number of responsibilities and committee memberships does not represent the amount of effort required by a councillor in performing their duties 2 - There is no method currently employed to record the work / effort / hours put in by a councillor in their day to day duties, or when undertaking special responsibilities or committee duties. Thus we can conclude that without any effective metric to measure "work" with any analysis will be subjective.

Where's the data come from?

We have also received details about a couple of extra rolls which were performed by councillors which are not currently listed on North Lincolnshire Council's web site. Subsequently I've updated yesterday's article and analysis to reflect this new information; again, if there are any other rolls or responsibilities missing please get in touch with our editorial team. We've spent a long time today going through the minutes of all meetings from the 1st May 2010 to the 31st Jan 2011 and checking the attendance of councillors at these meetings. The NLC Constitution requires that a meeting is held approximately once every 7 weeks. This excludes a summer recess which in 2010 ran from 2nd August to 3rd September inclusive. In this time there was one Planning Committee Meeting. We have analysed attendance only at full council meetings, and have included the two additional extra-ordinary council meetings which have also been convened. The rationale for this is that all councillor's receive the basic allowance, therefore all councillors should attend the full council meetings. All councillors receive a basic allowance of �6,365 per annum for being a councillor. A councillor's duties do not include just their attendance at meetings, but also working with their constituents, taking phone calls from them at all hours of the day and night and also (some) councillors choose to attend local parish and town council meetings as well. Any one metric on its own can not be used to judge the commitment of any one councillor. Just as one councillor's sandwich budget should not be used to smear or besmirch the effort they put in to their job. Logic would suggest that the more lunches a councillor has, then providing they have a reasonable portfolio of responsibilities and committee memberships would amply justify any such claim.

Don't smear it, analyse it!

Take for example recent media reports about the lunch claims of Cllr Swift. What the report seemed to wish to totally ignore is the level of responsibility and committee membership which Cllr Swift is involved in. It's all very well for the leader of the Tory's to claim morality over sandwiches, but when the Tory councillors have fewer rolls and responsibilities than any one else at council, then there's no clear justification as to why they should have expenses to the level they have. Yesterday we exposed the excessive mileage claims made by Tory councillors in pursuit of their civic duties representing you, the people of North Lincolnshire. Today we look at who can actually be bothered to turn to to council for all of the 6 meetings per year.

Council is Complex - it does require effort and commitment

Council meetings are complex business, if you've never been to one, go, see how your local democracy works. Prior to a council meeting all the papers are circulated. The majority of these are available to the public via the web site, and even as a fast reader with access to what is probably around 75% of the material a councillor has to digest prior to a meeting usually takes me a good 2 to 3 hours to read. Then there are questions to write, research to be done, and party strategy to be discussed. So lets be clear, we are in no way attempting to trivialise the work of a councillor, and to be perfectly honest, the �6,365 remuneration per year for all that work is probably fairly reflective of the work involved when combined with the time spent responding to residents needs. What the problem is here, is that there is no clear metric to analyse councillor expenses with. As a result any attempt to provide an objective analysis of council expenses can very easily be overcome by the writer's own political agenda.

So what's the alternative?

Here's a couple of ideas, based around existing rules and regulations which govern the likes of you and me. As some readers will know, I'm self employed (drop me a line if you'r computers broken, you need a web site, or want some copy writing). As a self employed person I bill my clients, and I charge them expenses. When ever I claim any expenses, then its got to be claimed against a particular piece of work, for example "Travel to your offices in Glasgow, Fit network equipment, test and integrate with existing systems" would be a fairly typical one for me. However the client's not going to stump up petrol money without evidence of the work done. This evidence comes in the form of a time sheet, showing that it took me 5 hours to drive to Glasgow, 7 hours to install the equipment and 6 hours to drive back. So what if councillors kept time sheets? They are receiving a paid allowance for their work, and can claim out of pocket expenses in conjunction with that work. from what I understand council employees need to clock on and keep a time sheet, so why not councillors? I'm sure we'll be told its too expensive to implement, but in who's opinion is it too expensive? Personally for more accountability I'd be happy to seem my council tax being spent on such a solution. Thats just one method, another idea that's sprung to mind centres around the way in which EMA is (or rather WAS) paid to students. 6th formers used to receive EMA (until the Tory's stopped it) providing they attended college and stayed on the course. There was also a 100% attendance bonus payable at the end of each term for students who bothered to turn up. So here's an idea. We've already established the link between each meeting and the preparation for a meeting, and we've assumed that councillors will not (for "financial" reasons) want to tell the electorate how many hours they work, so lets change the way the basic allowance works. Lets change the way the basic allowance is allocated, lets say there are 6 meetings a year, so lets half the allowance giving each councillor some funds to cover their time dealing with residents. then lets give them �530 for each meeting they attend.

Turn up and Pay Up

Those that don't attend don't get any cash. And if they are ill? Well Like I said before, I'm self employed and if I don't go to work because I'm ill, I don't get paid.... The simple analysis of attendance on its own does question the validity of councillors with poor attendance record's being entitled to the full basic allowance, as this is easily quantifiable in terms of attendance it is something the council should seek to address. Sadly the council minutes do not seem to document apologies or reasons for absence. Below are a couple of tables showing attendance figures for this financial year (to date) and also a list of responsibilities and committee memberships undertaken by each councillor. Naturally if any of the councillors reading this would like to add to their rolls and responsibilities then please, send them through and we'll update them, the list came from the NLC web site so do make sure your copy is up to date too, as we found a couple earlier which were missing. Fig 1 - Attendance at Full and Extra Ordinary council meetings May 1 2010 to 31 Jan 2011

Councillor	Attended	�% Attendance	Party
Ali	6	100	Labour
Armitage	6	100	Labour
B Briggs	6	100	Independent
Bainbridge	6	100	Labour
Barker	6	100	Labour
Barkworth	6	100	Labour
C Sherwood	6	100	Conservative
Carlile	6	100	Labour
Cawsey	6	100	Labour
Clark	6	100	Conservative
Collinson	6	100	Labour
Davison	6	100	Labour
Eckhardt	6	100	Conservative
Ellerby	6	100	Labour
Glover	6	100	Conservative
Gosling	6	100	Labour
Grant	6	100	Labour
J Briggs	6	100	Conservative
Jawaid	6	100	Labour
K Vickers	6	100	Conservative
Kirk	6	100	Labour
L Foster	6	100	Labour
Mrs Redfern	6	100	Conservative
Mrs Simpson	6	100	Labour
N Sherwood	6	100	Conservative
O'Sullivan	6	100	Labour
P Vickers	6	100	Conservative
Poole	6	100	Conservative
Swift	6	100	Labour
Waltham	6	100	Conservative
Wells	6	100	Conservative
Whiteley	6	100	Labour
Wilson	6	100	Labour
Berry	5	83	Independent
Bunyan	5	83	Conservative
England	5	83	Conservative
Smith *	5	83	Labour
T Foster	5	83	Conservative
Regan **	4	67	Labour
Wardle	3	50	Conservative
Mrs Bromby	2	33	Conservative
Mrs Siddell	2	33	Conservative
Stewart	2	33	Independent
key: * Unable to attend due injury requiring hospitalisation ** Both meetings missed were on the same day

Fig 2 - Council members responsibilities and committee membership

Councillor	Party	Responsibilities	Committees
Ali	Labour	Deputy Mayor - 2001 / 2011	Planning Committee
		Lead member for Transportation	Safer and Stronger Communities Scrutiny Panel
			Healthier Communities and Older People Scrutiny Panel
Armitage	Labour	Lead member for Communities	Standards Committee
		Humberside Fire Authority	Licensing Committee
			Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
			Safer and Stronger Communities Scrutiny Panel
Bainbridge	Labour	Lead Member for Regeneration and Renaissance	Planning Committee
		Humberside Fire Authority	Appeals Committee
		North Lincolnshire Homes	Economic Development and Corporate Issues Scrutiny Panel
Barker	Labour	Lead Member for Environment	Healthier Communities and Older People Scrutiny Panel (Chair)
			Scrutiny Co-ordinating Panel
			Planning Committee
Barkworth	Labour		Licensing Committee (Chair)
			Licensing (Miscellaneous) Sub-Committee (Chair)
			Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
			Appeals Committee
			Economic Development and Corporate Issues Scrutiny Panel
Berry	Independent
B Briggs	Independent		Planning Committee
Briggs	Conservative	Humberside Fire Authority	Shaping the Council Committee
Bromby	Conservative		Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel
			Appeals Committee
Bunyan	Conservative
Carlile	Labour	Cabinet member for Adult Services	Planning Committee
			Appeals Committee
Cawsey	Labour	Lead member for Children's Issues	Audit Committee
			Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel
			Scrutiny Co-ordinating Panel
Clark	Conservative		Licensing Committee
			Licensing (Miscellaneous) Sub-Committee
			Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
			Safer and Stronger Communities Scrutiny Panel
Collinson	Labour	Lead Member for Diversity	Safer and Stronger Communities Scrutiny Panel (Chair)
			Scrutiny Co-ordinating Panel (Chair)
			Licensing Committee
			Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
			Standards Committee
			Appeals Committee
			Shaping the Council Committee
Davison	Labour	North Lincolnshire Foster Panel	Planning Committee (Chair)
			Healthier Communities and Older People Scrutiny Panel
Eckhardt	Conservative		Planning Committee
			Licensing Committee
			Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
			Appeals Committee
			Healthier Communities and Older People Scrutiny Panel
Ellerby	Labour	Lead Member for Markets and Partnership Development, Sport and Recreation	Licensing Committee
			Licensing (Miscellaneous) Sub-Committee
			Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
			Safer and Stronger Communities Scrutiny Panel
			Economic Development and Corporate Issues Scrutiny Panel
England	Conservative		Planning Committee
			Standards Committee
Foster	Labour	Deputy Leader	Licensing Committee
		Cabinet member for Neighbourhood, Environmental and Communities	Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
		North Lincolnshire Homes	Shaping the Council Committee (vice chair)
Foster	Conservative		Audit Committee
			Appeals Committee
			Safer and Stronger Communities Scrutiny Panel
Glover	Conservative		Economic Development and Corporate Issues Scrutiny Panel (Vice-chair)
			Scrutiny Co-ordinating Panel
			Licensing Committee
			Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
Gosling	Labour	Cabinet member for Children's Services
		Humber Bridge Board
Grant	Labour	Cabinet member for Housing and Strategic Planning	Planning Committee
			Appeals Committee
Jawaid OBE	Labour	Humberside Police Authority	Licensing Committee
		Lead member for supporting people	Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
			Economic Development and Corporate Issues Scrutiny Panel (Chair)
			Scrutiny Co-ordinating Panel
Kirk	Labour	Leader of the Council	Shaping the Council Committee (Chair) Chair of the Regional Transport Board Member of Yorkshire Forward Board
		Cabinet member for Regeneration, Markets and Strategic Finance
		Humberside Fire Authority
		Humberside Police Authority
		Humberside Airport Board
O'Sullivan	Labour	Cabinet member for Sport, Leisure and Culture	Licensing Committee
		North Lincolnshire Foster Panel	Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
		North Lincolnshire Adoption Panel	Appeals Committee
Poole	Conservative		Standards Committee
			Licensing Committee
			Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
Redfern	Conservative	Shaping the Council Committee	North Lincolnshire Homes
Regan	Labour		Cabinet member for Highways, Planning and Energy
Sherwood	Conservative		Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel (Vice-chair)
			Scrutiny Co-ordinating Panel
			Planning Committee
Sherwood	Conservative		Planning Committee
			Audit Committee
Sidell	Conservative		Healthier Communities and Older People Scrutiny Panel
Simpson	Labour	Lead member for Schools	Healthier Communities and Older People Scrutiny Panel
			Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel
Smith	Labour	Mayor 21 / 211
			Lead member for Arts and Culture �
			Humber Bridge Board
Stewart	Independent		Appeals Committee
Swift	Labour	Cabinet member for Corporate Services	Standards Committee
		Group secretary	Licensing Committee (Vice-chair)
		Humberside Fire Authority	Licensing (Miscellaneous) Sub-Committee (Vice-chair)
			Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
			Appeals Committee
			Shaping the Council Committee
Vickers	Conservative		Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel
Vickers	Conservative	Humber Bridge Board	Licensing Committee
Waltham	Conservative		Planning Committee
			Appeals Committee
			Economic Development and Corporate Issues Scrutiny Panel
Wardle	Conservative		Planning Committee
Wells	Conservative	Humber Bridge Board	Licensing Committee
			Licensing (Activities) Sub-Committee
			Appeals Committee
			Healthier Communities and Older People Scrutiny Panel (Vice-chair)
			Scrutiny Co-ordinating Panel
Whiteley	Labour	Lead member for ICT and Member Champion for Regulatory Services	Planning Committee (Vice-chair)
			Audit Committee (Chair)
			Standards Committee
			Appeals Committee
			Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel
Wilson	Labour	Lead member for Healthier Communities and Adults	Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel (Chair)
			Scrutiny Co-ordinating Panel
			Appeals Committee
			Audit Committee (Vice-chair)