Councillors Allowances
All in this together? Not likely!
Hartlepool Borough Council has to save £15m from its £90m budget over the next three years. The Mayor and leaders of the main party’s are telling us that the budget will have to be reduced by £6.7m in the next financial year - 2012/13. The reduction of £6.7m is bound to have an affect on how the Council delivers it’s services. The Mayor and members of his Cabinet tell us repeatedly that they are doing all they can to ease the burden on the council taxpayer.
But did you know that the same people are considering an increase in their own allowances due to an alleged increase in workload after the local elections in May 2012.
In a review of the ward boundaries, it was decided that the number of elected councillors in Hartlepool will be reduced from 47 to 33 and the number of wards will fall from 17 to 11. The money saved by the reduction will be approximately £66,000. This is money that the Council badly needs to help keep its services running. Nevertheless a number of councillors believe that the bigger wards will result in more work for them and that having an increase in their allowance would help ease the burden of the extra work. They don't want any money to be saved. They want to redistribute it amongst themselves.
The Hartlepool Mail reported on Wednesday 8th February 2012 that the council’s scrutiny co-ordinating committee recommended keeping the £66,000. This is because an independent panel is currently reviewing the councillor’s allowances and the panel may recommend a rise in allowances due to the larger wards and increased number of people members would be representing.
Hartlepool councillors currently receive an allowance of £5,767 per year, but this is not good enough for some of them, they want more. This is totally wrong when the Council is making people redundant and finding it increasingly difficult to deliver its services.
However our illustrious mayor said, “Whatever the Independent Remuneration Panel comes back with then the council needs to react to that”. Is this code for the mayor and the rest of the councillors to vote themselves a pay rise?
All elected members, including the mayor should be putting the needs of the people of Hartlepool First. They should make a commitment to not take any increase in allowance for the next four years regardless of the recommendations of the Independent Remuneration Panel. I wonder how many would do that?
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