Councillors’ pay to rise by 20% (From The Advertiser Series)

Councillors’ pay to rise by 20%

5:11pm Thursday 30th July 2009

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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.

The panel said in its report that guidelines emphasised that “some element” of a councillor’s work was voluntary, but steps were needed to ensure councillors did not lose out financially and to encourage people to stand for office.”

Council leader Simon Henig moved the recommendation to approve the increases, telling the meeting that the process for deciding allowances was set by the Government and was followed by councils across the country.

“My own personal view is that it would be far better if either the panel’s viewpoints went straight to a national level or there was a sliding scale developed on a national level to cover all councils.”

Becky Brunskill, Tory councillor for Willington, urged councillors to follow her group’s lead and abstain from the vote. She said the decision should be made by an independent panel.

Finance chief Stuart Crowe said that the combined total of allowances paid to district and county councillors last year was £3.7m. This year, with the increase, it would be £1.9m.

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