Should councillors be full time?
Paula Keaveney (ethics leader at Liverpool Council) has responded to my post about whether councillors should be paid more, by looking at whether they should be full time.
She concludes that they should not:
Being in employment elsewhere also means you keep a real world connection. Now I know that we all do a lot of talking to residents, joining in things, sharing ideas etc and that is all great. For the most part we live in or near the wards we represent and we are with constituents every day. But it is so very easy, if you do nothing but politics, to lose some of the real world perspective. If nothing else those Councillors with jobs are better at ensuring that meetings are accessible to working people than those without!
I responded to Cllr Keaveney saying:
Although I may have advocated councillors being paid more, I still can't make my mind up whether councillors should be full time. If there were the numbers would have to be drastically cut. It strikes me that the current half way house may not be perfect, but is probably the best least worst solution (if that makes sense). Dare I mention the words elected mayor?
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David Bartlett - City editor of the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo covering politics, regeneration, and urban affairs. He was previously chief reporter of the Daily Post and here he gives his insight into the workings of regional politics.
The Labour Party suggests to its candidates that they should be prepared to do a minimum of 20 hours a week as a councillor.
If you work full time then that means you have to fill up your evenings and weekends to achieve that. I worked full time for a year after I was elected, but even with a half day per week paid leave from my job, it was too hard. There was simply no work/life balance.
I now work 2 or 3 days a week and dedicate much more time to my council duties during the working day than I was able to do before. Evenings are still pretty full but that is because that is when residents tend to get together and, in our ward, we like to be at all their meetings.
We don't all have partners to help pay the bills if we dont earn, and we are not all in receipt of a pension for instance, so the allowance is crucial to helping us to carry on. If you didnt pay a decent allowance then being a councillor would only be possible for rich people and that would not be representative.
Interestingly David has not pointed to the fact that the vast majority of us do not claim travelling or late working expenses, despite being entitled to them - unless going to conferences away from the city - and I personally have never claimed a penny piece since I was elected 3 years ago.
I think we get about the right amount, it covers the costs of our related overheads and any salary loss and so allows us to take up public service. I get just over £10k as a back bencher and also in my case, a special responsibility allowance of around £6k (for a new post I was just elected to, Chair of a District Committee).
I work in the private sector now, although I was working in the public sector in my last job and I would agree with Paula that it is important that we maintain that link with work colleagues and the real world, so that we understand where our residents are coming from.
Id be more inclined to support a increase in pay for a cllr if the special resposibility allowence (SRA) system was not so routinley abused
its outrageous thats its all within the whim of The current leader of the council
Look at the current situation and find me one example on anyone getting an SRA who did not support Bradley last year in the election for leader.
whilst anyone who opposed him is banished to be no more than a lowly back bencher despite any merit/talent they could bring to a role
Its Rotten.