Councillors' increased Responsibility Allowances are well merited
The news item on this site abut the increase in councillors' allowances with the picture of Councillor Peter Thompson, Leader of Hounslow Councl, is more like a Labour Party press release than objective journalism.It is a pity that Councillor Peter Thompson was not able to give his side of the story.The Leader of Hounslow Council has not awarded himself a pay rise. That is not within his power. Hounslow Council has democratically decided to increase the allowances paid to the Leader of the Council, the Deputy Leader, the Executive members and ordinary councillors of all parties so that the allowances in Hounslow are consistent with allowances paid to councillors in other London Boroughs,such as neighbouring Liberal Democrat controlled Richmond. This increase has been supported by Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Community Group councillors.The Labour councillors have predictably opposed the increases but that is to be expected as the Labour group still has not reconciled itself to its historic defeat last year and has sulked ever since.If Labour were in power, I am sure they would have voted for the increases.Hounslow Council arrived at the figures using London Councils' - an umbrella organisation made up of all London Council Leaders of all parties - average allowances table. In my view, the Leader of the Council,Councillor Peter Thompson and Deputy Leader, Councillor Mark Bowen and the other councillors deserve these increased allowances. The Leader, Deputy Leader and Executive members are responsible for leading and running a Council with major and incresaing responsibilities, a budget of hundreds of millions of pounds and for directing a large workforce of council officials, many of whom earn significantly more than the allowances paid to the Leader or Deputy Leader.Council Leaders, Deputy Leaders and Executive members have to devote large amounts of time to their council duties. This inevitably affects their earning capacity and promotional opportunities in their regular non-political employment and careers.An allowance of £34,000 is modest compared to the salaries paid to the Chief Executive, Council Departmental Directors, Head Teachers and many other Council employees. It is also modest compared with an MP's salary of over £60,000 per year and the additional value of MP's pensions, expenses, alowances and other benefits which is of course well over £100,000 a year.The responsibilities of the Leader of a Council like Hounslow are in my view much greater than the responsibilities of a mere backbench MP like Alan Keen.In recent years the EU and the UK Central Government has imposed considerable extra responsibilities on local Councils, without providing the additional funds needed by Councils to perform these duties. It is to Councillor Peter Thompson and his colleagues' credit that Hounslow Council is now much better run than ever before and has for the first time managed to freeze the Council Tax, after many years of constant increases under the previous incompetent and inefficent Labour administrations.With the singular exception of Councillor John Connnolly, the former Labour Leader and Mayor, very few Labour Councillors have ever been close to being as competent or as effective as Councillors Thompson, Bowen or other present Exective members such as Gerald McGregor.The present Executive of Hounslow Council is probably the best qualified Executive Hounslow has ever had. We do need competent and effective leadership in local Government. In order to do this we have to compensate our councillors fairly so they do not suffer financially due to performing their civic duties.It is particularly important to have councillors with managerial, professional and public and private sector experience who are capable of dealing with professional and well qualified EU, Central and Local Government officials, MP's, Ministers and the directors and leaders of public and private sector organisations as equals and not as supplicants or cyphers.The old adage "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys" is very true. This increase in allowances will greatly increase the chance that we will have a well-run Council in the years to come as more and more good people make themselves available for selection as candidates and election as councillors.
David Giles ● 6516d9 Comments