Allowances for Councillors
This is an issue that usually provokes a public outcry whenever allowances for councillors are reviewed if they increase by more than the rate of inflation (or at least by more than the rate of increase in council tax). I would like to examine this further.

In the district in which I live (North Hertfordshire) there is a recent paper on the subject here.

I won't summarise it here. However, in my view the allowances are not excessive. In my view a councillor must put in an average of about 7.5 hours per week to do just a basic (unimpressive) job. A good councillor needs to put in a lot more. A good North Hertfordshire District councillor who is paid £3,476 per annum is probably putting in over 15 hours per week and for them the pay translates to less than the minimum wage.

This paper documents how much councillors were actually paid in the 2005/06 year. I don't have details of the 2005/06 allowance scale, but it appears that the basic allowance was £2,340. If so, the only councillors who opted to take less than this were Cllr. Burt [Con] £1,800, Cllr. Sal. Jarvis [Lib Dem] £2,191, Cllr. Lunn [Lab] £2,293, Cllr. Mardell [Lab] £2,293, Cllr. Sheard [Lab] £2,293. I don't know the history, but suspect that the slightly sub-normal amounts arise from councillors choosing to rein back the increase in their allowances from previous years in line with inflation or increases in council tax. Only Cllr. Burt looks as though he chose to accept significantly less (Cllr. Hollands [Lib Dem] is missing from the list, although he resigned early on in the civic year so would only have qualified for a small pro-rata amount anyway).

It may be that some councillors who were entitled to additional amounts for additional responsibilities (e.g. portfolio positions or committee chairmanship) opted to take less than their full entitlement. I haven't checked that and this post focuses mainly on the basic allowance.

It seems to me that there are two conflicting arguments. On the one hand many existing councillors aren't motivated to do the job by the money. However, on the other, insufficient pay is probably deterring some people from standing as councillor or putting in the extra hours that would raise the standard of their performance from adequate to good. A constraint is that local government finances are under pressure.

I find it hard to believe that some councillors need the money or that most councillors are motivated to do the job by money.

So my suggestion is that councillor allowances become means-tested based on income. Councillors with a high income would receive a low basic allowance and councillors with a low income would receive a high basic allowance (subject to certain performance criteria e.g. at least attending meetings). The amount paid to each councillor could be kept confidential (subject to examination by an auditor) to protect the privacy of councillors. A report would then be prepared showing how many councillors fell in each allowance band, without personally identifying them.

The total expenditure on councillors could be kept broadly the same as at present, but this would free up more funds for councillors on lower incomes. This would probably eventually result in a more diverse range of councillors. It would also provide an incentive to councillors to go part-time in order to devote more time to council duties.

There might be downsides. A councillor on a low income qualifying for a high allowance could invest part of that allowance to protect their position (e.g. frequent ward newsletters). However, that seems unlikely. If they are prepared to work that hard to do so (and have the skills to do so in an effective way) then it is hard to imagine that they would choose to do that rather than seek other types of employment that would be more remunerative.