To think that £17k for being a local councillor is excessive?

[Sweetpotatoaddict]

I was curious to see what they were paid, and expected a small amount as its a role designed to fit with another job. It concerns me that it may encourage people to stand purely for the financial gain and not because of a desire to help. I'm curious to hear what other mnetters think. Or have I misinterpreted something somewhere?

www.gov.scot/Topics/Government/local-government/localg/cllrsremuneration

Looks like the close to 17k figure is Scotland-wide

The point is that the different levels have different requirements.

Parish / Town / Community councils are very small and often apolitical.
They focus on very local issues.
The commitment is as little as a couple of hours a month.
They employ between 1 and 50 people

District / Borough councils are often party political but not very.
They again focus on more local issues.
The commitment is around 10 hours a week and recompensed as such.
They employ between 100 and 1000 people

County / Metropolitan / large Unitary Councils are always political and deal directly with Central Govt on a daily basis.
The commitment is around 25 hours a week and recompenses accordingly.
They employ up to 50,000 people

I thought people did it for free!

Why would anyone do that for free?!

DF was a County Councillor at cabinet level. It was more than a full time job if you included all the paperwork and calls at unsociable hours, meetings, site visits, civic duties etc. He used to get calls at all times of the night and day and his private life was never his own really. He loved it though and was really good at it. Never missed a meeting apart from when he was really ill. it was hard work.

That is high Bewty - I have worked in five counties in England, average current basic county councillor allowance in those I worked in is £9,200. I just checked!

Talkin, I know current councillors from all tiers, their workloads are nothing like those quoted at all.

Far more for town (as in upwards of ten hours a month because towns don't have the pool of numbers to draw from so multi committee membership is required) and much, much less for county. District not far off.

Here is the allowance scheme for a large County Council
documents.hants.gov.uk/AppendixE-MembersAllowancesScheme.pdf

Yes, its way too much considering my interactions with them- they were bloody useless, fighting decade old fights with each other that got in the way of any sensible decision-making and utterly utterly full of total bullshit - eg you say 'I've complained about the bins collection to the officers and its being cleaned next week' mentioned to a councillor became a circulated email about how he was 'finally getting something done after residents have been unable to achieve results'

They are so fearful of criticism that they NEVER make a decision, or even align fully with someone elses decision, and they claim power, but don't really have any, and then use that to insist on being on the boards of local initiatives.. and then fuck them up by blocking every decision, in case its the wrong one and they get criticised.

I was trying to get a local fully funded project off the ground locally, and the local councillors added nearly two years of arguing about who should and shouldn't be on the consulting group, including a six month fight between them to be the chair of that consulting group - so each two hour meeting consisted of at least an hour of 'why don't you think I'm capable of being chair' 'well you cant just say I'm going to be chair, we need to decide it' 'ok you be chair' oh I coudn't possibly, but of course if there is a will to make me, then i would be honoured to.' 'well if your not sure pete, then perhaps we should recruit externallly' etc etc etc Utter fucking utter uselessness.

scaryclown
Did you stand for election to kick them out ?

no way! because that involves 'seeking consensus amongst members... ie slowing your thinking and action and behaviour down to their level to gain their approval.. and then when you are elected whichever party you are in, and whoever you know are used by the others to align you with whatever fight they have been having for years with whichever party or person in the party who nominated you, and so you'll turn up with the best solution to a raised problem, and they'll block it because 'you know jim, and I've always hated jim, so I'm going to make sure this doesn't get through x committee'

Its a fucking mental institution, local politics..

Local councillors are the type of people who would make everyone starve on a liferaft, just to make sure that someone they didn't like starved.

So if there were no elected councillors, all decisions would be taken by utterly unaccountable appointed staff
HMMM
"unelected bureaucrats"
of the type that the EU has 33,000 but the UK has 440,000

give me elected, accountable muppets any day
(just so long as they listen to the experts paid to give advice)

Lovely Scary. I generally like all the people I meet and value their input.

There is a vast difference in allowances paid.

Gawd, I am not sure how I have ended up in AIBU at all , I have had it blocked as a topic for a vvvv long time!

Barchester tbf it used to be much lower. I can remember when it had a big increase, I think it was iro 5 or 6k, then there was a big increase - basically to increase its appeal to a wider range of potential councillors. Was a few years ago now, mind.

Sorry I should have said the £17k I was talking about was the Scotland wide figure with extra for positions of office and leaders salary on a payscale related to size.
I'm more that the rates in England are less. Especially as Scotland already has an extra tier of government. I wonder how much more per head is spent on government expenses/ salaries in Scotland than in England?

When hard slog minimum wage households barely scrape £10,000 - £15,000 a year, £17,000 a year to sit in rooms talking and fuelling old rivalries seems positively insulting.

Councillors aren't really accountable - mostly parties are desperate to get anyone to stand, and no-one knows if they are fucking useless unless they interact with them, and even if they are useless because of our stupid system with no 'no confidence in all candidates' option, they still get in if they are in approcimately the right party. its a total joke.

No wonder Sally Webster's so keen. On top of her Underworld wage, she'll be quite comfortably off.

scaryclown
What remedy do you suggest?

there is no point slagging something off unless you have some ideas for something better

Yes, the system has scope for improvement, but you have to start from where you are without making things worse

It's absolute peanuts for the work involved I would stand but it would be a massive pay cut. I think the low salary excludes people with a lot of experience.

Its true, you can never think somethings bad without also being the person with the solution.

Scarily its one of the things I think P-P-P-Pickles got utterly right.

The new Transparency rules are making local government much more open and accountable.
Which means they start to make better decisions.

Sadly all of the huff and puff about MP's having outside interests has left us with a house of Commons increasingly filled with narrow minded wonks.

It's an incredibly hard job with massive responsibilities. You couldn't pay me enough tbh. £17k? Peanuts.

I'm standing for election in 3 weeks' time (unitary authority) and have had some residents question how much councillors get paid.

My view is that if you don't pay something, you leave it to those that can afford to do it for free, which means a far smaller pool of 'talent'.

I'd rather we have a decent cross-section of society making these decisions for us.

Like with MPs, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

My initial sentiment is the exact opposite. Career politicians will do it for free or very cheap as a stepping stone and/or for power, whereas there are good people who won't be able to afford to do it for below what they'd get paid if they were using the time for employment instead.

You have to think this through. If you give the position a significant salary, you will get more people applying to the selection process because it's an alternative to a job. Thus the selection process will become more stringent and competitive. The kind of diversity we need in local government won't stand a chance.

You'll start to get MP-style selection questions for councillor positions, and this is where things fall down. An ex-taxi driver or former NHS district nurse will not be able to compete with someone who has worked in some form of government, charity, quango or business where they have taken decisions that have affected policy applied to a large range of people, for example.

Again, if the positions come with a significant salary, you'll start to get serious money thrown at campaigns and PR. Yes, there is a limit to spend during the campaign period, but not before. Such a situation would make it impossible for someone to stand as an independent who may be funding their own campaign, and will also be detrimental to parties with less money in the coffers.

I admit my views are coloured by experience. Where decent money is involved in local politics, because there are chairs up for grabs, cabinet positions, mayor or deputy mayor roles, you really attract the wrong sort of people, a lot of playing politics and silly beggars, and very nepotistic decisions made that aren't the best for the community. It also encourages people to import Westminster-style attitudes and perspectives into local government where really you need to be able to work cross-party on a regular basis.

Where people are in local politics because they are civic-minded and want to improve their communities and services, you get excellent representation.