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London councillors' 20% pay rise in three years
Ross Lydall and Anthony Kimber20.10.09
Councillors in London have voted themselves 20 per cent pay rises since being elected, figures reveal today.
Allowances have increased by more than £5million since the last town hall elections in 2006 and cost council tax-payers more than £31million a year.
Thirteen of the 32 boroughs run up bills in excess of £1million a year, with senior councillors routinely receiving £40,000 or more.
Eighteen boroughs paid their members a basic wage of more than £10,000 in the 2008/09 financial year. Council leaders and the capital's three directly-elected mayors - in Newham, Lewisham and Hackney - have their basic allowances boosted by top-up awards.
Sir Robin Wales, the Labour mayor of Newham, receives the biggest allowance in London aside from Boris Johnson's Greater London Authority administration, earning £78,063 a year, up 2.45 per cent year on year. Lewisham mayor Sir Steve Bullock earned £77,722, while Hackney mayor Jules Pipe earned £75,291.
Merrick Cockell, the Tory leader of Kensington and Chelsea council and the chairman of the London Councils umbrella group, is the best paid old-style council leader. He received £66,478 from his council, plus £21,492 from London Councils.
Research for the Standard using freedom of information laws found Tory-run Croydon paid the most allowances and expenses. It ran up a bill of £1,479,832 in 2008/09, with council leader Mike Fisher earning £53,410. Its basic annual award of £11,880 was the most generous. Other than the City of London Corporation, which does not pay allowances, the cheapest was Liberal Democrat-run Kingston, which paid £618,877.
Many boroughs managed to pay councillors more while freezing council tax - possibly meaning that services were cut to balance the books.
There are more than 1,800 London councillors. On average, allowances between April 2006 and March 2009 rose slightly above the average UK wage, which increased by 18 per cent. Tory-run Harrow saw the biggest increase, with its bill rising by £179,851 to £797,280. Barking and Dagenham was the only authority to reduce outgoings, with allowances falling £78,689 to £755,673.
Councillors are also able to reclaim travel, subsistence and carers' expenses, though these tend to be modest. Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Plenty represent their constituents for very little and do a good job, but in some boroughs the allowances are very high."
Councillors can also reclaim travel, subsistence and carers' expenses, though these tend to be modest.
Reader views (21)
@ J Pesach, London, UK
Erm, the Elected Mayors are the decision makers and it is their decisions that should be scrutinised.
I was a councillor in Newham during Wales first term and during that time not one of his decisions went before overview and scrutiny - the reason: O & S and all scrutiny panels are chaired by Labour Party Councillors (even though there are 6 opposition councillors in Newham) so it is easy for him to control what O & S examines. In Newham's case O & S is used as a "policy forming" forum which has little to no power.
- Mike Law, Newham
The 3 Mayors are Executive Mayors, which is a full-time job. The reason we have Councillors and Mayors is to hold to account the decisions of Council staff - with most Councils spending nearly a £1 billion a year, I think £70,000 is a small price to pay for proper scrutiny of decisions.
People always want democracy on the cheap. My local Councillors work hard so I don't begrudge their £10,000 at all. If your Councillors don't work hard, boot them out!
- J Pesach, London, UK
as well as being the highest paid Executive Mayor Sir Robin Wales &at £78,000 and is also paid £8000 for his role with LOCOG (the organising body for the 2012 Games) and thise Mayoral Advisors most of whom seem to be full time Cllrs.
As for Ann from London's comment re: Case Workers, I contacted my local Cllr and got a personal letter back from him and it was obvious that he'd written it himself, whereas others sent the same letter out which had been written by staff for them !
some councillors are hard working, others may not.
- Steve Buchanan, Newham, London
Your article above forgot to mention that Cllr Cockell also draws £14k from the Audit Commission in addition to his £66k from Kensington & Chelsea and £24k from London Councils
- Donaldcameron, Kensington, London
After the last election Waltham Forest's new Councillors started work by awarding themselves a salary and allowances increase of c.20%, a total of c.£250,000 p.a. Whenever since they claim that money is tight (closing a library in a deprived area to save £70,000, closing all public loos), this action shames them.
The trouble is the 'professionalisation' of the job; too many come out of quangos, local gov't and TU hierarchies. One of our cabinet members is also Chair of the Primary Care Trust, for another £46,000, on the grounds of no very obvious qualifications. This means that he frequently has to leave a meeting as soon as he's arrived, to avoid conflict of interest problems, but it doesn't stop him drawing both salaries. He also thinks that when Councillors are voted out, they deserve severance pay! It's all too inbred and cosy: one of our salaried department heads is a former Labour Council Leader!
But unless all you good people complaining here get on your feet and get stuck into your local politics, nothing will change.
- Mdj E10, london uk
The combined costs of the Leader and Deputy Leader of Kensington and Chelsea, Messrs Cockell and Moylan is now just
tippping over £220,000 a year. Let us not forget that this is not just a Labour led scandal; the Conservative councillors are as greedy as the rest.
Within this figure are not included expenses and
travel.
- Fed Up Taxpayer, Kensington
No Mayor should earn more than the lowest paid minister in the government. These people are only running tin-pot juntas, not the country.
Also absolutely no pension based on final salary, as from now
- James, City of London
There is a serious problem with democracy in Newham, it is simply does not exist. Making Robin Wales an executive mayor instead of a ceromonial mayor is a big mistake. In addition, in the Borough with 54 out of 60 Councillors being Labour, they just don't listen to residents.
We need someone who is honest to challange this adminstration.
Newham Council is charged with regeneration of the Borough, yet they are more interested in their own agendas. They forced through expansion of London City Airport from 76,000 to 120,000 flights. So residents have to suffer with 1 flight every 90 seconds. It was not a bad place to live, but Newham Council has ruined it all. Go speak to other communities such as those in Carpenters Road, they told there is no money for buiding repairs - so where did the Council get £100m for Building 1000? (now rename to Newham Dockside).
The Labour Party centrally does nothing about these people.
- W.L., London
I fail to see why any London Borough needs an executive mayor.
Is there any evidence that these 3 boroughs are better run or more effective than the other 29?
The level of 'allowances' being paid, often for very little additional responsibility, is scandalous. In Newham we have a deputy mayor who's pulling in £52,000 a year for her pains.
- Martin Warne, Newham, London
Thanks to the "cabinet" system in place in Croydon, backbench councillors have very little say in how the borough is run, yet they still get the highest allowance.
The spokeswoman's spin that "our level of expenses claimed by councillors is among the lowest in the city" conveniently ignores these points.
- Austen, London
i wish i could award myself a 20% rise. These people do not live in the real world.
- Geoffrey Bishop, southport england
The Mayor of Newham also claims that he'll be making savings of £70 Million over the next 3 years. However, the "savings" seem to come from identifying inefficiencies he had promised to get to grips with in the past.
Furthermore the "savings" rise incrementally by year at a rate of £8 Million (meaning that, had he not been pressured to deal with it by the current economic crisis, the Council would have been on course to increase its misuse of funds at a steady annual rate).
My guess is that he is adding the amount saved each year to the total amount saved in previous years and claiming that is the full total for the year. He claims £15M for year 1, £23M for year 2 and £31M(!) for year 3 - a supposed total of £69 Million. However, if he is saving £8M in the second year and adds that to the initial £15M that makes £23M; if he does the same in year 3 (adds a saving of £8M to £23M) he gets £31M. He then appears to be adding all 3 totals together, where as the figure is more likely £31M - the original £15M plus the two £8M savings - or reallocated funds to you and I.
- Mike Law, Newham
Newham also has the highest number of Mayor Advisors (Councillors picked by the Mayor and on very high allowances - some as high as £40,000 on top of their usual allowance of £10,000+).
- Mike Law, Newham
What did Cameron say? Look at the way Tory Local Councils aree running things and you'll ge