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£28 million: the annual payout to our councillors
Katharine Barney, City Hall reporter02.12.08
Councillors in London are taking home £28million a year in pay and allowances, it is revealed today.
Leaders of some of the most deprived boroughs have awarded themselves incomes of more than £70,000 a year, according to a Standard survey.
It comes despite warnings of service cuts after low government funding awards. The survey, based on a Freedom of Information request, showed councillors claimed a total of £27,996,476, including £1,562,860 given to leaders.
The money was agreed by councillors and figures are based on a basic allowance and top-ups according to position. Croydon paid out £1.45million with their councillors receiving the largest allowance of £11,596. Meanwhile Hillingdon paid £1.3million. Barnet, Hackney, Havering, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Newham, Southwark, Waltham Forest and Wandsworth all paid more than £1million.
The largest individual payments went to the directly elected mayors in three of London's poorest boroughs.
Sir Robin Wales, the mayor of Labour- run Newham took home £76,194, mayor of Lewisham Steve Bullock got £75,844 and Jules Pipe, mayor of Hackney, £73,085 even though the borough is the second most deprived in the country.
Mark Wallace, campaign director of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "This is an obscene amount of money, particularly in the middle of a recession. These very same councillors have been complaining their councils are strapped for cash, but seem to have no qualms paying themselves excessive amounts. Council leaders earning huge amounts from some of London's poorest boroughs should be particularly ashamed."
It comes after the Government said 24 of London's 33 authorities would get the minimum funding increase of 1.75 per cent - well below inflation. Council leaders warned of cuts in services and some boroughs, such as Lambeth, have been forced to delay work.
Others have made staff cuts with Hammersmith and Fulham council losing 566 posts in the last three years through natural wastage.
London Councils chief executive John O'Brien defended the payments. He said: "London's council leaders play an important and hugely challenging role running multi-million pound organisations.
"Leaders, like all councillors, are driven by a desire to make their areas better places to live, work and visit. They can work around 150 hours a month.
"In return they receive a median salary of around £48,000, around £4,500 less than the basic fee for a non-executive director of a FTSE 100 company - and much less than backbench MPs who aren't responsible for running services."
A spokesman for Newham council said their mayor carried "immense responsibilities locally, leading a council with a budget of £280million". He added that he would earn five times as much in a similar private sector role.
Council leaders have no holiday, sickness, pension or maternity benefits.
Reader views (18)
The level of ignorance shown by some people on internet forums never ceases to amaze me.
- Andy, Hertford
"A spokesman for Newham council said their mayor carried "immense responsibilities locally, leading a council with a budget of £280million". He added that he would earn five times as much in a similar private sector role"
Well actually he is working in the private sector!!! London City Airport can abuse residents , he sacked the Unison Leader , he is pushing through the development of Queens Market. I wish he would go to the private sector!! What a waste of money!
- Darren, Newham
How exactly are you to attract the highest quality in Councillors if they're only paid 10K? Councils have too many part-time councillors only half interested in their jobs.
Local government plays a huge role in the lives of the deprived in boroughs such as Lambeth or Hackney. If they slip up people who are dependent on their help suffer. If we want competent government, we have to pay for it. 70k for running a council is not extravagant.
- Cat Forbes, london
We need to get rid of all the fat cats in local government, their pensions, perks and expenses we cannot afford them. Councillors are awarding themselves too much of our council taxpayers money and are doing a terrible job. We are being ripped off.
- Maggie, London
sack the lot of them
- Ambientboy, london
'He added that he would earn five times as much in a similar private sector role'
Please, please, get him a job in the private sector and give us in Newham a break.
- Tor Cromwell, London
Hammersmith looses 566 jobs through natural wastage? why were we paying for them in the first place?!
- Ag, The Village of London
The real issue is what they get paid for.
In Croydon, "ordinary" councillors get paid the highest allowances in the capital. However, thanks to the "cabinet" system of local government, they have virtually no power or practical purpose. Only the elite in the Cabinet - half a dozen or so councillors - have any real say.
You also have people with two jobs, like Croydon cabinet councillor and London Assembly Member, Steve O'Connell, who picks up two salaries worth over £100k in total. His cabinet responsibility is for safety and social cohesion - this in a borough where gang, knife and youth crime is probably the worst in London.
As for Josh's point that there are too many councils and that it is all to expensive, we could always abolish democracy like in Zimbabwe and Nazi Germany - that would save us a few quid.
- C. Nichol, London
There is clearly an excess of 'democracy' in local councils. Since the 'cabinet' style of local government was introduced the majority of councillors have become 'backbenchers' with little opportunity of actually affecting the decisions of the council to which they are elected. One also has to question the necessity for two or three councillors representing the residents of each council ward. An MP deals with many more times the number of constituents than a local councillor ( a constituency may cover half - or in a few cases a whole - borough - so why are so many councillors required?) Also, more and more councils offer the opportunity for residents to bring problems to them directly through websites, emails, texts, one-stop-shops etc so the councillor no longer has to act as the conduit between the public and the council.
You could get rid of two thirds of them and use the money to reduce council tax without cutting front-line services.
Look forward to seeing which national politician - of any party - will have the guts to suggest that!
- Phil, London
No, Mr. Mayor of Newham you would not earn five times in the private sector, especially given the current economic conditions. And when did getting pay equal to that of someone in the private sector become the main attraction/justification of the salary of a public servant role? If that is the true motivation then - news flash - get a job in the private sector. Or perhaps that's just too scary a prospect - proper working hours, proper accountability and the everyday pressure to perform to a high standard and only yourself to blame...
- Mikki, London
You should check that these amounts are actually paid - not all Cllr's take their allowances. You should also review whether expenses are paid - some authorities have rolled things like provision of taxi fares, computers etc into the allowances
- Bluenose, london
It would be greatly appreciated if when showing these figures you also showed us the payments made to Assembly Members at the GLA including the benefits on expenses and for PAs and other members of staff.
- Liz, dagenham
How odd that the poorest boroughs support the highest paid "elected mayors". If these councillors really are "driven by a desire to make their areas better places to live, work and visit", they should do it for nothing as councillors used to do. And 150 hours work a month - that must really exhaust them. What do the, also highly paid, officials do?
- Patrick Griffin, Dalston, London
Councils, unions, public sector pay and conditions, police tied by pc stifling laws, out of touch judges, lenient sentences for lawless, drugs disabling brains, idiots in charge with no common sense and more stifling laws to prevent actions.indolent wastrels,taxpayers money squandered on above. Hard work and greedy bankers cause another recession. Here we go around the mulberry bush, we are about to lose our business yet again. Any one know the time of the next train out of here?
- Ann, Chelmsford UK
It's perhaps a bit misleading to not include the number of councillors in each borough.
In Lambeth, for example, there are 63 councillors, which works out at £16,850 per person - though the reality is that many get less than this, as the average is bumped up by the council leader's allowances, and those of the committee chairs. So in fact, the allowances are actually pretty reasonable. Being a councillor is hard work and is not something people would do for the money.
However I suppose that "Councillors earn reasonable allowances" wouldn't be nearly as exciting as a headline.
- Mark Lee, Vauxhall
After the last election Waltham Forest's new Council voted itself 35% increases all round, but are recouping the expenditure by knocking down all the public loos!
- Mdj, Leyton, e10 london
there are far too many councils in london; we do not need 33 councils - which includes the outdated corporation of london. if we had fewer councils, it would cost us less.
- Josh, london
agghh the public sector gravy train rumbles on bankrupting us all and producing nothing but pen pushers, form fillers and offices full of people doing nothing. Thank goodness that my 40% tax goes somewhere decent.
- Fly, london
