ConservativeHome's Local Government Blog

What relationship should a council have with trade unions?

Should trade unions operate as supplicants of local councils? Should they have full time posts and office accommodation funded by the Council Taxpayer? This was something we looked at on Tuesday evening at a meeting of the Value for Money Scrutiny Committee (which I chair) in Hammersmith Town Hall. We had a report on "trade union facility time." We have cut back the number of "Full Time Equivalent" union posts funded from 12.7 to 7.5. But this still puts us high up the league table of the 32 London boroughs in their generosity towards unions (with their residents money.) We are in fourth place (Labour-run Greenwich comes top funding 9.5 posts.)

Our bill comes to around £400,000. We have salary costs of £333,3922. "Additional Costs I.T." come to £37,250, Accommodation costs (rent free office space in Council buildings) is worth another £30,740. We also collect their subs for them via the payroll without charging for the service. This smacks to me of us encouraging our staff to be union members - as an employer we should neutral about whether or not our staff choose to join a union. The committee felt their were scope for further savings in this area.

One or two Labour councillors attempted to plead the case that funding their paymasters constituted good value for money - but I thought they sounded rather half hearted. One of them asked about management asking if that should be the focus for savings. How many HR managers do we have? 54. Wasn't that rather a lot? Yes, but then under the previous Labour administration it had been over 100. Despite reducing the number of HR staff heir performance has improved - as evidenced by the average number of days sickness absence falling from an average 9.2 days a year per employee to 8.2 (we have a target of the private sector average which is 6.4.)

Southampton councillors pay freeze

Opposition Labour councillors on Southampton are opposing the Tory administration's proposal to freeze councillors allowances. The Labour councillors say the move would mean the role of councillors would be "devalued" by the public. They propose allowances should be increased in line with the minimum wage.

In Southampton allowances are calculated on the basis that councillors work 37 hours a week and that if they were paid the minimum wage this would come to £11,159.20. Strikes me as a pretty fatuous arrangement. What if a councillor puts in less than 37 hours? They still get paid the £11,159.20. Or more than 37 hours? Is Southampton Council breaking the law by paying those councillors below the minimum wage. What constitues work? Canvassing? It generates lots of case work but then it is a party political activity we would do anyway. Attending an annual drinks party of a residents association? Councillors would be expected to show up but does going to a party constitute work.

Anyway the value of a councillor is not the number of hours they put in but what they achieve.

Councillors should pool knowledge on Council Officer recruitment

Mark Wallace, of the Taxpayers Alliance, says that Council leaders should check out the background of council officers with each other to ensure better recruitment.

Selecting the right council officers is essential. Get the right one, with the right attitude and ethic, and it is a great asset. Get the wrong one, and you could have serious problems. At best, they might just not be very good, but at worst you could get someone who either feels they should be running the council or even has a party political problem.

As we know, far too often councillors are undermined, obstructed or even actively opposed by officers. It is a severe problem for councillors, voters and taxpayers. If power actually lies in the hands of someone who is not accountable to the people, then it is a recipe for poor service, higher taxes and public disillusionment.

Thanks to the Standards Board and its absurdly overzealous approach to punishing councillors often for simply representing their constituents, officers have more power than ever over elected representatives. Numerous councillors around the country have experienced frankly vexatious Standards Board complaints from the very people who they are meant to be obeying.

Essex defends having a high paid Chief Exec

Cllr David Finch, the Cabinet Member for Adults, Health and Well being on Essex County Council, says the Council makes no apology for having a highly paid Chief Executive.

This evening, ITV's Tonight programme will detail the salaries of a number of leading public officials including a number of Chief Executives of the largest authorities in local government.

Unlike some others, Essex has actively engaged with the making of this programme in an effort help explain the responsibilities and complexities of the job, the unprecedented transformation journey that Essex is embarked upon but also because we are keen to engage in a debate around pay in the public sector.

Essex is a £2.2 billion annual organisation has 38,000 staff and serves 1.6million people. However size alone does not make a particular salary justified.

Our ambitions for the organisation are without precedent. Conservative Home readers may well remember that Essex announced a couple of weeks ago the largest savings targets in local government history - some £300m by 2012 equating to a third of our annual net budget.

Alongside members it will be the responsibility of the Chief Executive to deliver this programme of change that literally means looking at every part of our operation and asking whether it could be done better or more efficiently or if it needs to be done at all.

Content to sit back and simply let the organisation tick along we are not.

In the last 18 months with the Chief Executive in position, we have saved a total of £98.5m for the Essex taxpayer. And we are on target to save an additional £30m before the end of this year.

Do small councils need a CEO?

Cllr Brandon Lewis, the former leader of Brentwood Council, says small councils should look at cutting the cost of a chief executive.

Following the recent coverage of the view of Eric Pickles MP on the lack of need for CEO's in local authorities, I thought a few words on the way this can work in practice may be useful.

I was Leader of Brentwood Council from June 2004 to April this year (2009). When our CEO decided to retire a few years back we were looking at how and how we recruit. We would be faced with a cost to the council of around £150,000 or more for a new CEO and we were a relatively small authority on the edge of the London Boroughs. So we were competing with size and huge differences in pay scale just 10 mins from our own town hall. We felt there was going to be real difficulty in recruiting anyone of the calibre we wanted (as we had found with other senior posts) and with efficiency savings required we were struggling to work out how or why we would want to spend around the £150,000 on another member of staff, when that money could be used to improve front line services.

Brentwood agreed a partnership with Essex County Council. They would share their CEO, who could then purely focus on our strategic issues whilst Brentwood’s own Executive Management team and Deputy CEO could focus on the daily operational issues and at the same time save local taxpayers a lot of money.

Pickles urges Councils to ditch CEOs

The Municipal Journal has a story that Tory Chairman Eric Pickles is privately urging Conservative Councils to look at abolishing the post of Chief Executive as and when such posts fall vacant. Understandably no commment is being made about rumours of what might be discussed at private meetings. But Conservative spokesman have been open in the past about suggesting some Toown Hall CEOs are paid too much and praising Councuils which split the cost by sharing a CEO.

John Redwood has been open in calling for such posts to go. It would seem reasonble that leaving abolishing the position should at least be considered as an alternative to filling the vacancy - as with any other Town Hall post.

The Municipal Journal think Pickles raising these matters contradicts localism. As I stated before when a similar point was made over his complaining at their pay levels, I don't think it does. He is entitled to his opinion. As well as being Party Chairman he was a highly effective leader of Bradford Council so council leaders would do well to listen carefully to his advice. It does not mean he is giving orders.

End national pay bargaining

Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers Alliance says Unison's pay demands would mean service cuts and higher unemployment as well as Council Tax hikes. They should be resisted and national pay bargaining ended.

This week will see Unison lodge its demands for Town Hall pay rises with the Department of Communities and Local Governmnent. And thus a farce will undoubtedly ensue.

Great play has been made by the Unions of 12,000 or so job losses that have taken place in local government this year, out of a total payroll of 1.5 million. The reality is that council staff are still far better protected from the recession than any part of the private sector, but Unison will undoubtedly deny any suggestion that they should share any of the pain being suffered by taxpayers.

The Government have, finally, begun to talk of the need for pay restraint, but severe doubts naturally hang over their willingness or ability to fight on the issue.

By rights there should be at least a pay freeze, and for many parts of local government – such as middle management, which has grown 11-fold in just over a decade – there is a good case for cuts.

Barnet councillor to keep "piffling allowance" after moving to Australia

Cllr Christopher Harris has had the Conservative whip withdrawn from him on Barnet Council after he moved to Australia. Council byelections are a considerable expense and inconvenience (although given the elections are next May if he resigned now I am not sure one would be needed.) But the point that the press have focused on is that he is still claiming his allowance.

He response in the press to criticism is that of a stage villain shaking his fist. His £800 a month is a "piffling amount" so he will go on banking it. He says: "I don't see there is any problem. I don't see why I am not allowed to have an extended holiday." How long he would be away is undecided. "I don't think we will come straight back as I hear the weather's getting colder in Britain." But his point that much of a councillor's work is done via email is true.

Should Councils pay celebrities to attend their events?

If a Council is providing a new service - a new library or swimming pool perhaps, or a new recycling initiative - it makes sense to publicise it as much as possible in order for residents to be able to take advantage of it. Having events to ensure staff are motivated and realise they are appreciated can also be reasonable. But should Councils be paying thousands of pounds for celebrity appearances?

One would have thought that there were so many celebrities around that every district would have a local smattering of them. Wouldn't it be possible to find one with enough community spirit to appear for free? After all the publicity doesn't so the celebrity any harm either. Wouldn't it count for more having a local, unpaid celebrity - than one from outside pitching up because they had been paid?

Anyway, The Mirror has carried out some Freedom of Information requests looking at the fees paid. They have discovered that Newham Council paid Barbara Windsor £6,000 to present an awards ceremony to staff. Nottingham Council has paid £15,800 for four celebrities - including Sir Clive Woodward to give a "motivational" speech to staff. Haringey paid Kriss Akabusi to give staff a morale boosting talk. Tewkesbury Council paid TV chef James Martin £15,000 to appear at a food festival.

One can imagine some of the nonsense that will be talked at such events: "You are all really special. You are all doing the most amazing job..." Some are, some aren't - anyway how would the hired celeb know. Far better to spend the money on performance related pay to reward those staff who really are doing an amazing job.

Well done to Conservative-run Gravesham Council who persuaded Strictly Come Dancing judge Len Goodman to come and talk and dance for free at an event to promote fitness.

Lib Dem councillor claimed back church donations on expenses

A Lib Dem councillor, Cllr Davida Allen, who represents Amersham Town Ward on Chiltern District Council, has claimed back, in expenses from the Council Taxpayer, money she paid as an offertory contribution at church services.

Amersham Town Council recently voted to allow public scrutiny of the Mayor of Amersham’s expense account. An account previously kept secret and not even audited by the Town Councils auditors!

A study of the files now held at Amersham Town Councils offices reveal:-

On SIX occasions in 2003, Cllr Davida Allen, the then Mayor of Amersham claimed back the £5 charitable donation put into the collection plate at the end of a church service. (8.6.03 £5; 9.10.03 three claims of £5; 16.12.03 Amersham Carol Service £5, Chesham Carol Service £5)

The Mayor in 2003 /4 spent £1071.61 having 500 Christmas Cards made – a cost of over £2 per card – and charged the full cost to the local Taxpayer. – who paid for the postage is not clear.  No other Mayors did this.

In May we discovered that the Labour MP Frank Cook had submitted an expenses claim for “Battle of Britain church service, Sunday 17.09.06. £5 contribution to offertory.” At least his claim was turned down.

The True Cost of Council Employees

Mike Schofield, of the Isitfair? campaign which protests against the Council Tax, works out the pension costs for the Town Hall fat cats.

Reports about the number of council employees being paid £50,000, or more, do not tell the full story with regard to the total, taxpayer-funded cost of employing these people.

This is because these reports were based only on the salaries paid and did not take into account other costs for which the taxpayer also has to foot the bill and in particular costs associated with employer (i.e. taxpayer) contributions to the employees’ pensions. These other costs add considerably to the total as shown in the examples below.

Whether all this money – the salaries, the employer pension contributions, and the employer NIC - comes from council tax or from general taxation is neither here nor there. Whichever way you look at it - it is all OUR money – and, under threat of legal action, we are all forced to pay it from income on which we have already paid our own income tax, NIC, VAT, and other taxes.

And – to cap it all - from what is left of our income we are also expected to make our own pension arrangements.

Gross Annual Pay £50,000

Pension Contribution. £3,600. (7.2%.)  Note 1

Contribution to Employee Pension £9,050, Note 2

NIC £4,396  Note 3

Total Cost to the Taxpayer £63,466.

Gross Annual Pay £100,000

Pension Contribution. £7,500. (7.5%.)

Contribution to Employee Pension £18,100

NIC   £10,796

Total Cost to the Taxpayer  £128,896

Gross Annual Pay £200,000

Pension Contribution. £15,000. (7.5%.)

Contribution to Employee Pension £36,200

NIC £23,596

Total Cost to the Taxpayer  £259,796

Notes

1. Employee pension contribution. In 2008-09, and depending on how much they were paid, council employees contributed between 5.5% and 7.5% of their gross annual pay into the Local Government Pension Scheme (the LGPS). The more a person was paid, the greater the percentage they contribute.

2. The employer’s contribution to the individual’s pension. The level of employer contributions is determined by individual pension fund actuaries and is recalculated every three years. The level of contribution varies across the country, and from authority to authority, but as an example, in 2008-09, the employer’s (i.e.
taxpayer’s) contribution to the pension fund for each employee at Hampshire County Council was 18.1% of the employee’s gross pay. (The employer contribution increased to 18.6% in 2009-10 and will be 19.1%
in 2010-11 and will then be reviewed to determine the rates for the following three years.)

3. The employer’s National Insurance Contribution (NIC). NIC is paid by most employed people and also by the employer. The amounts to be paid are determined based on current Government legislation. The LGPS is what is known as a contracted-out scheme meaning that members do not participate in the Second State Pension (S2P – previously known as the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme or SERPS). Because the LGPS is a contracted-out scheme, both the employee and employer pay lower amounts of NIC than would be the case if they were contracted-in.

One cheer for John Denham

Mark Wallace of The TaxPayers' Alliance welcomes the investigation into Council Chief Executive pay offs - but says he should go further and be out in the open.

One cheer for John Denham! The Communities and Local Government Secretary appears to be the only Cabinet Minister who is actually putting forward some new proposals which could improve the lot of taxpayers at the moment.

His latest announcement is that the Audit Commission are to carry out a full investigation into so-called “Boomerang Bosses”, the highly paid council chief executives who pockets staggering golden parachutes when they are dismissed from one local authority, and then walk straight into a job at another Town
Hall.

The issue of executive pay in local government certainly needs close attention. Our annual Town Hall Rich List this year revealed that 1,022 local government officials enjoyed total remuneration of £100,000 a year or more. That’s an increase in the number of highly paid officials of 27% in one year. Many of those are
buoyed up by exorbitant redundancy payments, and it is certain that the majority of those currently in position have similarly generous agreements in place should they be dismissed.

Such leaving payments are – like many public sector employment practices – a bizarre version of what one would find in the private sector. By combining the eagerness of councils to act as though they are large businesses with their lack of actual private sector experience and in-built dislike of the uncomfortably tough working conditions in the real world, they have produced a fairground mirror distortion of a normal executive contract.

Council Chief Executives pay offs challenged

The Audit Commission is to review the pay offs available to Council Chief Executives. Hefty examples include John Foster who was paid £545,000 for leaving Wakefield Council in 2008 - within months he was appointed CEO at Islington on a salary of over £200,000. More recently Martin Smith has left Tower Hamlets Council after falling out with the Council leader and was reported to have had a pay off worth £500,000. Tower Hamlets disputes the figure - but won't say what the correct figure is so it's a good bet that it's pretty high. Both Tower Hamlets and Wakefield are Labour councils but this isn't a party political issue.

One problem is that it seems so hard to sack people in the public sector - whether at the top or the bottom - for doing a bad job. Communities Secretary John Denham says a Council leader shouldn't agree an expensive deal with a CEO just because they "don't get on." He has a point. But what if a Council's CEO is doing a poor job but not the level of gross negligence to justify them being sacked without a penny?

There have certainly been abuses of the system. But what rules could the Audit Commission come up with that would improve matters? Perhaps when such posts are recruited in the first place it should be made clear that if he person is asked to leave for whatever reason that any pay off will be modest. There would be the risk of a capable Chief Exec being ousted on the whim of Council leader. But then there are rather higher risks for those working in the private sector.

Durham Labour councillors increase their allowances by 20%

I have only just been alerted via this blog post by Durham North Conservative candidate David Skelton that Labour councillors in Durham have just voted themselves through a 20% increase in their allowances.

Here's what happened at the meeting at the end of July according to the local paper:

Durham County councillors have given themselves a 20 per cent increase in the basic allowance they are paid for doing the job.The increase, which was proposed by an outside panel appointed by the council’s finance chief Stuart Crowe, was approved at Wednesday’s meeting of the full council.

There were 96 councillors present and 69 voted in favour, none opposed the proposal and 27 abstained, including the Conservative group.

All 126 councillors will get a basic allowance of £13,000, up 20 per cent from £11,079, backdated to April 1. The special responsibility payment for leader Simon Henig will rise 21 per cent from £30,136 to £36,575, while that for deputy leader Alan Napier will rise almost eight per cent, from £18,508 to £19,950. The six other cabinet members will receive £13,300, up from £11,019.

David had this letter in yesterday's Northern Echo criticising the move.

Jonathan Isaby

Pickles attacks paying Council Chief Executives more than the Prime Minister

Conservative Party Chairman Eric Pickles has criticised the pay of some Council Chief Executives as unreasonably high. "I'm not entirely sure that paying a quarter of a million pounds for a chief executive of a large local authority is justified," he says in an interview for The Independent. "To a degree, they are being paid like football managers. In a time when members have executive responsibilities, I'm not entirely sure that can be justified."

In a leader The Independent suggest these comments contradict the Conservative belief in localism. It says Pickles "tells this newspaper that a future Conservative Government intends to put a stop to Council leaders being 'paid like football managers.' " But he didn't - at least not in the comments the paper attributes to him. He made pretty clear he thought the pay for some of them was too high. It doesn't follow that a ban from Whitehall would be proposed. Pickles is entitled to express an opinion.

The paper goes on to say that as salary levels are in the public domain council taxpayers "in Newham, in east London, in Suffolk County Council and Kingston-upon-Hull can now decide for themselves whether they want their chief executives remunerated to the tune of £200,000-plus." Quite right. But it doesn't do any harm that residents in those areas have been given a nudge by Pickles.

Should Councils encourage staff to work from home?

Extraordinary story in the Daily Mail today about a manager from Mid Sussex District Council employing private detectives to prove that a member of staff, Roger Mills, was guilty of gross misconduct for spending time at home during working hours. It turned out another manager had told Mr Mills to do some work from home to help reduce office costs.

Despite this discouraging example home working seems to make sense. The cost of employing someone isn't just their salary but providing them with the office space for their desk. If a desk can be shared through "hot desking" between two members of staff who each spend some time working from home this saves money.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson pondered the pros and cons in a recent Mayor's Question Time at the London Assemby:

"I have to say that I think home working is an important thing to encourage. I think particularly when we are looking at the transport movements around London and the huge flows -- T S Eliot described the crowds flowing over London Bridge, 'Each man fixed his eyes before his feet' - or whatever it was - 'Flowed up the hill and down King William Street'.  They have that blank look and you often feel that perhaps people might be more profitably employed if they did not have to commute such long distances.

I find working from home completely unproductive because you are always going to see what is in
the fridge or making yourself another cup of coffee!  Do you know what I mean?  I think people love coming to offices because there is gossip, there are expenses which have got to be got right!  There are things to be sorted out.  They want the great kind of interchange that goes on and the cheerful to and fro. The chaffing that takes place."

Chief Executive of Somerset to leave

Alan Jones is to stand down as Chief Executive of Somerset County Council at the end of July following the Conservatives gaining control of the Council. The new Conservative leader Cllr Ken Maddock says he wants a "change in direction."

I don't know what pay off Mr Jones negotiated but the matter has apparently been managed in an amicable, diplomatic manner. Anyway his departure is not a great surprise. There was a dispute between Mr Jones and a former Lib Dem councillor Paul Buchanan which resulted in Mr Buchanan being thrown out of the Lib Dem group but gaining the support of the Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger. However a tribunal has upheld charges of Mr Buchanan breaking the Code of Conduct amidst this tale of revenge, fear and loathing.

A "clean break" will be welcome - as Speaker Bercow would say.

Councillors cost £241.5 million a year

An array of Freedom of Information requests have produced some interesting results for the BBC Radio 4 programme The Political Club on the cost and number of the political class in the UK. According the programme: "For the UK's 22,737 councillors and their assistants, the bill for pay and allowances was £241.5m."

There has been lots of attention on this site and elsewhere to councillors allowances. Rather less to the practice of employing full time assistants to councillors. The information the BBC got hold of was that Councils are employing 108 political assistants at a cost of £2.94 million. But the BBC regard this as a "quite significant underestimate." Councils have defined the term as narrowly as possible in their replies to the FOI requests.

It also only concerned with those assistants in a party political role. It would not include scrutiny coordinators, press officers, those assisting councillors with case work, etc, etc.

SNP councillor pulls out of byelection race

Cllr James Dornan, the SNP opposition leader on Glasgow Council, has withdrawn as the Party's candidate in the forthcoming Glasgow North East byelection. This followed a story in the Sunday Herald that he had got into financial difficulties and used a "protected deed trust" as an alternative to bankruptcy to keep creditors as bay. 

Unlike bankruptcy the "protected deed trust" doesn't bar him from elected office. But there is a suggestion that it should have barred him from being a "partner director" with a charitable organisation set up by the Council.

Most of the meetings councillors attend are not Council meetings but those for outside bodies they are appointed to that the Council gives money to or has some other relationship with. As part of this councillors are frequently trustees of local charities. So it would be useful to have the point clarified. In the recession bankruptcies are increasing as are alternative options such as Individual Voluntary Arrangements.

£3.7 million councillors bill for London's poorest borough

There may not be any Conservative councillors in Newham yet but the local Conservatives are certainly holding the Council to account - as this press release from East Ham Conservatives demonstrates.

East Ham Conservatives have described the recent annual pay bill for councillors in the London Borough of Newham as an absolute disgrace and an insult to the tax-paying public as the cumulative cost of paying for elected representatives since their election in 2006 has reached £3.7 million.

Based on the current average, Newham’s councillors and directly-elected Mayor will face the ballot box in May 2010 having clocked up a £4.9 million package of travel and food expenses, basic allowances and special responsibility payments dolled out under the patronage of Labour’s Sir Robin Wales.

The mandatory annual publication by the Town Hall this month revealed the bill had topped £1,299,681 for the period of April 2008 and March 2009, as opposed to £1,265,818 in 2007-2008 and £1,145,290 in 2006-2007 – this is despite the fact that 67% of Newham councillors also work full time.

Kent increases allowances by 8%

Conservative-run Kent County Council has increased their councillor allowances by 8%. It was in line with a proposal from the independent remuneration panel, they haven't had a rise for four years and they promise not to give themselves another rise for another four years. But even so. Does it pass the "smell test" to do this in the middle of a recession and just after an election?

Labour councillor for Ramsgate, Cllr Liz Green, voted against the proposal which takes the basic allowance up to £13,290. She says it is "appalling." I have good news for Cllr Green. She doesn't have to take the increase. She can ask the accounts dept to continue paying her at the old rate.

New Conservative administration in Devon starts saving money

The Conservatives have already shown there will be a change of direction on Devon County Council since they took control a fortnight ago. The bloated councillor allowances which rose sharply under the previous Lib Dem administration are being cut by £80,000 a year.

Savings include a freeze on basic allowances, scrapping a scrutiny committee which paid allowances to its chairman and vice chairman and which duplicated other committees,scrapping allowances for six councillors to support the executive councillors, reducing the leader's special responsibility allowance from  £27,425 a year to £25,000 and that of the deputy leader from £21,940 to £20,000.

Of course the £80,000 saving in the context of the total Council budget is tiny. That is not the point. By making savings themselves the Council leadership will be emboldened in seeking them elsewhere. The new Council leader Cllr John Hart has pledged to "getting tough on administrative costs and waste wherever we can."

Cheltenham Council lose case against their former MD

Lib Dem run Cheltenham Council have lost their court case against their former Managing Director Christine Laird. They were seeking a million pounds from her on the grounds she hadn't fully disclosed details about her health before she got the job. But the judge found that her answers to the questions were not false. She left after a break down in relations between the Council leader Cllr Andrew McKinlay prompting concerns that the case was being pursued against her for vindictive reasons. So far as I can gather we are still awaiting a decision on the awarding of costs. This has been a lengthy legal saga with claim and counter claim. The only clear winners are the lawyers and the only clear losers the Council Taxpayers of Cheltenham.

Laurence Robertson, a local Consevative MP says:

"I have long been concerned about Cheltenham Borough Council's determination to pursue this case, for three main reasons.

"To start with, it was very doubtful as to whether they could succeed in this case and that should always be a major factor when considering taking taking legal action.

Merton Labour councillor denounced by his own leader

A Merton Labour councillor has been denounced by his own Labour Group leader for drawing an annual £8,500 a year attendance allowance while living in Neath. Cllr Leighton Veale stood as a Labour candidate in Wales in the Euro Elections but was not elected.

He has justified remaining a councillor by saying a byelection would have caused the closure of local schools for the election. (Why do we use schools as Polling Stations so much? Very disruptive. Surely we could use churches and other buildings more instead.)

The good news for Cllr Veale is that he could stop claiming his allowance while still remaining a councillor following the example of Cllr Ashley Fox MEP in Bristol. This would avoid the need for a byelection. Over to you, Cllr Veale.

Councillor allowances rise above inflation

A Local Government Association survey shows the average basic allowances paid to councillors has risen from £5,648 in 2006 to £6,099 in 2008. Inflation over the period was about 5% (depending on what measure you use and which month you start from) which would have meant a rise to £5,930.

The average in London is £9,739.

For the extra money paid for being a Council leader the average is £17,753. (An average of £37,486 for London.) I don't think there is anything particularly odd about the pay being lower in, for instance, two tier authorities to a unitary one.  

But what is unfortunate that the LGA is not releasing the full data to enable like for like comparisons to be made between different councils. They did so in 2006 but "given the current climate we would like to be a little more circumspect about disseminating it at thie time." Wrong. Transparency is required more now than ever. Sunshine is the best disinfectant as Justice Lewis Brandeis said.

Tower Hamlets Council tells Chief Executive stay at home

Labour-run Tower Hamlets Council are evidently trying to get rid of their Chief Executive Martin Smith. Last week he was told to stay at home and "consider his future". Although they forgot that as the Election Returning Officer there was a requirement for him to supervise the Euro Elections so he was allowed to do so.

The Conservatives have put in a call for an Extraordinary Council Meeting to find out what is going on.

The £800 a minute councillor

Cllr Phil Briscoe, a Conservative opposition councillor in Tower Hamlets, has done an analysis on the Special Responsibility Allowances paid to his Labour colleagues. Cllr Salim Ullah is Chairman of the Appeals Committee for which is paid a SRA of £8,069 (in addition to his basic allowance of £9,698.)

During the last municipal year 2008/09 the Appeals Committee met once. For ten minutes. That's £800.06 per minute.

Cllr Ullah is a councillor for Bethnal Green South. I wonder what the hard pressed Council Taxpayers of his ward make of it.

Tory Euro MP to stay on as city councillor

Cllr Ashley Fox, newly elected to the European Parliament from the South West region, is to stay on Bristol City Council until May. He will no longer claim his councillor allowances but feels it would be wrong to impose the cost of a byelection.

Cllr Fox says that he will make promoting free trade his priority as an MEP. From his blog it sounds as though he will be an excellent MEP and very much in step with the new Eurosceptic grouping.

But why should he stand down as a councillor in May? I suppose there could be the odd clash of meetings but the European Parliament only meets in full 12 days a year plus a couple of days a month "plenary sessions" in Brussels and Strasbourg. To suggest being an MEP is a full time job is absurd.

Councillors need to take criticism more willingly

Mark Wallace of The Taxpayers Alliance says that councils should welcome scrutiny from his organisation as a "key stakeholder."

The results of any election are always due to a myriad of different factors – particularly local elections. National party campaigns of course have an impact, as do general political scandals such as the current chaos over expenses, and local factors rightly come into play. One strong theme, though, is if that people want politicians who listen – more so than ever now that there is a general feeling the politicians have been taking the public for a ride.

This might seem obvious, but time and again examples crop up of councils and councillors who not only can’t take criticism or disagreement, but actively try to smear it or stamp it out. It is part of the TPA’s job to oppose wasteful and misguided policies, and to support greater accountability, so from time to time we naturally level criticism against a variety of councils. Many react well, putting their case in response or even changing their ways, but some simply lash out. Two such examples of worst practice have crossed my desk in recent days.

Conservative councillor takes pay cut

Cllr Cameron Rose, an opposition Conservative councillor on Edinburgh City Council, says those who can aford to should follow the example of his colleague and take a pay cut.

The Telegraph’s rollercoaster continues to drive the headlines and people might be forgiven for thinking that all politicians are sloppy or dishonest in their personal use of public money.

Last week the Edinburgh Evening News ran an article on Conservative Cllr Gordon Buchan and his approach to expenses.

In his campaign leaflets in advance of the 2007 local elections he committed to take only 90% of the £15,000 salary paid to Scottish councillors. But now he is elected he goes further. I have never seen him consume so much as a cup of coffee paid for at public expense. Monthly council meetings last between five and twelve hours with a lunch supplied in the middle. Gordon always ensures he brings
or buys in his own.

Of course he is making a point. It is a point that not everyone need feel is necessary to make. And some councillors need the money to survive (Gordon has a well paid other job to provide for his family).

But we are all different people in different circumstances and the point he has consistently made is a helpful counterweight to the current media narrative. And there will be people like him in constituencies and councils up and down the land.

The public purse needs to be treated with respect.