Having read a some what opinionated piece on a local news web site this weekend regarding council expenses, and having seen the level of interest this has sparked on the site, we decided to do some analysis of our own councillor's expenses, and try to work out how much work any of them do for the money we pay them. Contentious? Of course. Analytically based? To some degree. Flawed? Naturally, as none of the data actually describes what work is done by councillors.

Councillor Workload Analysis - Method

We've obtained (what we think is) the same data as that used by the publication in question. If any councillor's think their total figures look wrong, do get in touch with us ASAP and we'll review our analysis and republish your ranking in accordance with the data we recieve. Having collated expenses data with the rolls, responsibilities and committee memberships of each individual councillor, we have gone for a simple ranking system which compares the rolls and responsibilities of any individual member against the income they have received from the tax payer. The theory behind this being that councillors are awarded extra allowance for extra responsibility, so therefore, the costs incurred with pursuing these duties should be higher for those with more responsibility than those with less. For example certain aspects of planning and housing will clearly cost more to fulfil as those responsible will have to travel to sites, conferences and meetings outside of the area. Those councillors without such responsibilities will not. Common sense would therefore dictate (unlike some of the poorly thought out trolls posting on the ET site about this) that councillors having to attend meetings in places like Glasgow will obviously end up with a higher mileage than those with no responsibilities other than attending council meetings. This was in our opinion the fairest way of analysing workload, as some councillors receive significantly more allowances than others, but also undertake significantly more work than others. To keep this analysis simple (and doable in a couple of hours!!) we've also ranked all rolls and responsibilities as being of the same "Value". In a more scientific study we would rank each job against the number of hours the associated councillor would have to put in to fulfil that roll. However, its Sunday afternoon and adding that data in would seriously extend the scope of this little project.

Empirical measurement of a councillor's value

We want to determine which councillors give us the best returns for our money. The theory being that those with most responsibility, taking least money give us the best value. Therefore the fewer responsibilities a councillor has, compared with the amount of money they receive would indicate a low "value for money" ratio, and therefore show that councillors with few responsibilities but high expense accounts are not working as hard as they should, nor are they offering value for money to the public. Each councillor has had their expenses summed in accordance with data used in the local paper. We have then added up the responsibilities each councillor has, and have givent them 1 point for each officially recognised task. For example Cllr Swift is a member of 9 different committes and panels, so he gets 9 points, plus 1 point for being a councillor. Coulcillors Bunyan and Berry have no responsibilities at all other than being councillors. This information is then factored, giving us a cost per job. The cost per job data is then ranked in accordance with how many rolls each councillor undertakes, giving us the following "Best Value table"

Best Value Councillors NLC Apr 2010 to Jan 2011

The table below shows the number of tasks carried out, and the level of remuneration per task received by each councillor.This gives an indication of how hard they work for their money, and what level of remuneration they receive fro that money. Those at the top of each section offer best value when compared to other councillors with a similar number of rolls and responsibilities.

Name	party	WorkIndex	�CostPerJob
Swift, Steve	Labour	10	�2000
Davison, Anderea	Labour	9	�1964
Kirk, Mark	Labour	8	�3463
Bainbridge, Sandra	Labour	7	�1825
Wells, David	Conservative	7	�1950
Whiteley, David	Labour	7	�1977
Ellerby, Tony	Labour	7	�2026
Armitage, Sue	Labour	7	�2106
Jawaid OBE, Ishaq	Labour	7	�2378
O'Sullivan, Christine	Labour	7	�2637
Foster, Len	Labour	7	�2846
Eckhardt, William	Conservative	6	�1497
Ali, Mashook	Labour	6	�2922
Wilson, Stuart	Labour	6	�2991
Barkworth, Darrell	Labour	6	�3219
Clark, Peter	Conservative	5	�1563
Cawsey, Linda	Labour	5	�2312
Glover, Ivan	Conservative	5	�2500
Barker, Trevor	Labour	5	�3693
Foster, Trevor	Conservative	4	�1888
Poole, Neil	Conservative	4	�1893
Simpson, Margaret	Labour	4	�2878
Waltham, John	Conservative	4	�2913
Sherwood, Carl	Conservative	4	�3182
Carlile, Pauline	Labour	4	�4399
Collinson, John	Labour	4	�4542
Smith, Allan	Labour	4	�4860
Grant, Mick	Labour	4	�5311
Sherwood, Nigel	Conservative	3	�2153
Bromby, Jean	Conservative	3	�2434
Vickers, Keith	Conservative	3	�2655
England, John	Conservative	3	�4378
Briggs, John	Conservative	3	�4767
Redfern, Liz	Conservative	3	�5304
Gosling, Tony	Labour	3	�6546
Stewart, Don	Independent	2	�3419
Briggs, Barry	Independent	2	�3524
Sidell, Margaret	Conservative	2	�3671
Vickers, Paul	Conservative	2	�3783
Wardle, John	Conservative	2	�3945
Regan, Bernard Paul	Labour	2	�9090
Bunyan, Arthur	Conservative	1	�8027
Berry, John	Independent	1	�10861

Analysis of Councillors with largest income and least responsibility

The following table shows which councillors claim most, and do least. Again this is an overall picture which takes into account the number of rolls and responsibilities each councillor has. Data for this has been taken from the NLC web site showing membership of committees etc etc. However there are a couple at the top of the table which clearly claim the maximum allowances available for turning up for council meetings and then doing very little other than attending meetings. Cllr Berry was mentioned in the Evening Telegraph at protesting that he had a very long way to travel to council meetings, so his mileage expenses were high. Councillors are allowed to claim 51pence per mile, so based on his expenses he's travelled 7,202 miles. Admittedly he represents Brigg and Wolds, but with no other officially recognised responsibilities, no parking or over night expenses, no officially listed rolls or responsibilities and a special responsibility netting him �156 it would be very interesting to see what the mileage claims are for. Another interesting milage claimant in a similar position is Cllr Bunyan, who has again no additional responsibilities, no over night stays and seems to do very little other than attend council meetings, yet has managed to clock up an impressive 3,229 miles on council business. What we don't have access to are figures showing how many meetings each of our elected representative's attended, but we'd expect that if you're elected to a position of responsibility, and your'e paid an annual allowance of �6,356 for the privilege of representing your community that you'd make every meeting. Anyway, here's the list of councillors who cost us most, but do least, as with the previous analysis if any one has figures which disprove this article, send them in, we'll publish them and revise our own calculations.

Name	party	WorkIndex	�CostPerJob
Berry, John	Independent	1	�10861
Bunyan, Arthur	Conservative	1	�8027
Regan, Bernard Paul	Labour	2	�9090
Wardle, John	Conservative	2	�3945
Vickers, Paul	Conservative	2	�3783
Sidell, Margaret	Conservative	2	�3671
Briggs, Barry	Independent	2	�3524
Stewart, Don	Independent	2	�3419
Gosling, Tony	Labour	3	�6546
Redfern, Liz	Conservative	3	�5304
Briggs, John	Conservative	3	�4767
England, John	Conservative	3	�4378
Vickers, Keith	Conservative	3	�2655
Bromby, Jean	Conservative	3	�2434
Sherwood, Nigel	Conservative	3	�2153
Grant, Mick	Labour	4	�5311
Smith, Allan	Labour	4	�4860
Collinson, John	Labour	4	�4542
Carlile, Pauline	Labour	4	�4399
Sherwood, Carl	Conservative	4	�3182
Waltham, John	Conservative	4	�2913
Simpson, Margaret	Labour	4	�2878
Poole, Neil	Conservative	4	�1893
Foster, Trevor	Conservative	4	�1888
Barker, Trevor	Labour	5	�3693
Glover, Ivan	Conservative	5	�2500
Cawsey, Linda	Labour	5	�2312
Clark, Peter	Conservative	5	�1563
Barkworth, Darrell	Labour	6	�3219
Wilson, Stuart	Labour	6	�2991
Ali, Mashook	Labour	6	�2922
Eckhardt, William	Conservative	6	�1497
Foster, Len	Labour	7	�2846
O'Sullivan, Christine	Labour	7	�2637
Jawaid OBE, Ishaq	Labour	7	�2378
Armitage, Sue	Labour	7	�2106
Ellerby, Tony	Labour	7	�2026
Whiteley, David	Labour	7	�1977
Wells, David	Conservative	7	�1950
Bainbridge, Sandra	Labour	7	�1825
Davison, Anderea	Labour	9	�1964
Kirk, Mark	Labour	8	�3463
Swift, Steve	Labour	10	�2000

Conclusions

I'm expecting some comments protesting the data, as I said in the analysis and methodology overview, the rolls undertaken do not show how much effort its either required by or put in by some councillors to fulfil these rolls. If we can collect the data showing the hours worked by each councillor to fulfil these responsibilities then we would be an what we'd consider an "ideal" situation as we would be able to carry out a more accurate analysis. Obviously we'd love it if councillors would let us know how many hours they work to fulfil their civic duties, we think that this would be by far the best way of analysing this data, but until we have these statistics for every one then its impossible to do a more detailed analysis. Any councillors wishing to provide further data either here on on their own blogs etc would be greatly appreciated.

Foot Notes

One of the problems with "expenses" is the abuses that the systems have suffered over the previous years, not necessarily by councillors but by politicians generally. Relatively speaking a lot of councillors work very hard, some councillors regularly attend parish and town council meetings so they can better understand the needs of their parishioners, some don't, some travel hundreds of miles in pursuit of their duties, roles and responsibilities, some don't. Given the information which is made available to the public, it's a difficult job to analyse constructively exactly what's gone on in the process of raising an expense claim. Should this data be made available to public scrutiny? Is there an alternative method that should be used to recompense councillors going about their duties? Perhaps so. any thoughts or comments on this would be greatly received, either privately or in the public forums below: At the end of the day the media will interpret expenses and public expenditure in what ever manner they feel suit their own ends. The article on the ET website focused on food claims, and judging by the comments intended to stir things up a bit. Shame really, as the truth is that most councillors seem to offer good value for money to the public, a few anomalies in travel for some councillors is easily understood when you look at the number and types of rolls they carry out, and those that really do nothing other than attend council meetings and milk the expenses have, hopefully been exposed. What this brief (and indeed inadequate) study does do is provide us with a metric (however crude) by which some form of mathematical analysis can be made over the figures as a whole, as opposed to just picking on one particular issue. We are now looking into the attendance figures for councillors, to determine what number of councillors actually turn up to full council meetings in order to claim their basic allowance of �6,356 per year. This means going through all the minutes of council meetings in the last year and seeing who attended. Any one wanting to help with the collation of this data, do please get in touch!