22% rise in councillors' allowances 'unacceptable' say Lib Dems

9.00.00am GMT Wed 12th Dec 2007

Conservative borough councillors pushed through a 22% rise in councillors' allowances at last week's meeting of full Council, in spite of Liberal Democrat objections that such a large increase was unacceptable to council-tax payers, and that service cuts might be needed to pay for it.

Proposing that councillors' allowances should remain unchanged, and be merely indexed in line with council officers' salary increases, Cllr Liz Hogger (Lib Dem, Effingham) said "The increase in allowances proposed by the Executive amounts to some £50,000 more than the current scheme - that's not far off a 1% increase in council tax. We know that to keep the council tax increase down to 5% the council needs to cut nearly £½ million off its expenditure next year. So what council services will be cut to pay for this huge increases in councillors' allowances? In these circumstances, to give ourselves such a large increase is quite unacceptable."

Cllr Sarah Di Caprio (Lib Dem, Holy Trinity) added "No one becomes a councillor for financial reward. In the current tight financial circumstances of local government, it would be quite wrong for us to give ourselves such a large pay-rise."

However Conservative councillors rejected the Liberal Democrat amendment, and voted through the 22% increase from April next year.