County councillors in Cambridgeshire on Tuesday voted to give themselves a 25% rise in pay and allowances starting with immediate effect.
The vote was carried by 33 to 29, with all but four of the Conservative Councillors voting for it, and all but one of the Liberal Democrat Councillors voting against it.
The pay award will see the basic allowance of a county councillor increase from £7,610 to £9,500 per year. The Cabinet members will have an additional allowance.
The Case for increase in County Councillors allowance
The vote was taken following the recommendations of a report by an Independent Remuneration Panel which called for an increase in councillors allowances. It is claimed that the last pay review took place in 2006 and at the time, councillors voted not to increase their allowances. So effectively, the allowance has been stagnant for a number of years, even though cost of living has been rising, as has the work that Councillors do.
The case for increasing councillors allowance was that it would bring the cambridgeshire figures closer to the wider remuneration package for other local authorities. The Conservative Council leader, Cllr Nick Clarke, makes the point about wanting to encourage as many people from as wide as possible a background to get involved in local government politics.
It is claimed that the increase will bring Cambridgeshire County Council’s allowances more in line with those being paid by other county councils in the country.
HOWEVER, and this is my view: whatever the reason and however good the case for an increase might seem, NOW is not the time to award a pay increase, let alone a 25% pay increase! It can only been seen as insensitive and out of touch with current mood in the country. Let me put this view in some context.
The Case against Increase in County Councillors Allowance
Following the announcement by Central Government of funding cuts for all local authorities, Cambridgshire County effectively front loaded swingeing funding cuts which saw some front line services cut or removed completely, job losses/redundancies and pay freezes for staff.
This county was, as far as I know, the only one in the country that decided to completely remove bus subsidies for rural transport. Bearing in mind that the county is largely rural in nature, the decision was viewed as insensitive and damaging. The cuts have seen the loss of two evening services of No 18 bus service which goes through Comberton, Toft and Kingston. It has also seen the nearly doubling of fares on the No 4 bus for residents of Caldecote.
Families in Toft have also seen the school bus service taken away from some of their children, in a move that I can only describe as legalistic righteousness, and a back tracking on a promise made by previous county administration which closed the school in Toft, to provide transportation for children to attend the primary school in Comberton.
The County made a huge mistake with the speed thumps in Caldecote, allowing the lumps of tar that are currently in place, which have caused thousands of pounds of damage to cars of Caldecote residents. Whilst a verbal belated apology was received last year, the county is insistent it has no funding to replace these abominations with proper traffic calming measures, leaving the replacement to be carried out and funded by the Parish Council.
And there is the elephant in the room, which is the Guided Bus, which serves only a small minority of the county, and which has overun by tens of millions of pounds. It is likely that the matter will go to litigation and the county will face a bill that is likely to be in the region of £90 million. All this for a project that was supposed to be fully supported by central government funding and was not supposed to cost the county tax payers any money!
These are just a few issues that I can remember as I write this. I’m sure there are many more. So against this backdrop, the vote to increase the Councillors allowances can only be viewed as being out of touch, and completely inappropriate.
However, all is not lost, as the County Liberal Democrat group is currently considering taking action to try and stop the pay award being implemented.