Cheshire East Council risks being “a council of the retired, for the retired” unless it increases councillors’ allowances to attract younger candidates, members said.
All CEC councillors currently have a basic allowance of £12,851, with the council leader having a special responsibility allowance (SRA) of £29,517 on the top of that and the deputy an SRA of £17,820.
Committee chairs and others with special responsibilities have an additional allowance of up to £12,485.
The Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP) recommended these allowances should increase by 2.5% for 2024/25 and 3.2% for 2025/26 backdated to April 2024 – which the corporate policy committee yesterday (Thursday) agreed to recommend to full council.
But concerns were raised that the low payments were a barrier to younger people standing for election because they couldn’t afford to take time off from their paid employment to fulfil a councillor role.
Deputy leader Michael Gorman (Wilmslow, Ind) said: “One big issue is that we risk being a council of the retired, for the retired, focusing on issues that concern the retired.”
He asked: “Do member allowances have a bearing on this?”
He said the cabinet system will bring a huge increase in responsibilities for portfolio members.
“They are not chairs. The workload will rise. We’ve got to look at that really in a mature way,” said Cllr Gorman.
“It’s a full-time job.”
Cllr Jos Saunders (Poynton, Con) said Scotland and Wales had a better system where councillors’ allowances are set centrally.
Cllr Janet Clowes (Wybunbury, Con) said: “I feel very uncomfortable talking about what are relatively significant rises to allowances at a time when everything has gone up.”
Cllr Rob Vernon (Macclesfield, Lab) said the allowance system was “flawed and outdated”.
“This idea that 50% of member time is voluntary and not eligible for remuneration, it locks in, by necessity, that the council is of the retired and of the independently wealthy,” he said.
“I’ve sat on this council for seven years, and yet I still remain its youngest member by a decade and a half, possibly more…
“25% of our population is under 25 but 1.2% of our elected council is under 40 and these policies, they do entrench that.”
Cllr Vernon said he was elected while still at university and has had to build his career around his council role, meaning he has never been able to fully commit to a five-day, full-time job.
But he said the biggest issue is the allowance cabinet members will get when the council changes to a cabinet system in May.
“As per this proposal, we are to pay the political lead for adult social care in this borough, £29,206,” he said.
“It is a full-time role where you are making life-changing multi-million pound decisions with a budget of more than £170 million for £29,000 a year.
“In a couple of weeks’ time, the minimum wage for a full-time 40-hour job will be £26,400 and we’re asking the deputy leader who works 60-hour weeks, to do so for £34,000 a year.
“It’s obviously inadequate.”
The committee agreed to recommend to full council that the IRP conduct a review of councillor allowances for Cheshire East as a large unity authority in a cabinet system for May 2026 and report back as part of the six-month review once the cabinet system is operating.
The IRP will also consider allowances for members appointed to the Cheshire and Warrington Combined Authority and the Cheshire Pension Fund Committee.
Eight councillors voted for the recommendations, two against and three abstained.
We pay a huge price as tax payers in the form of Council Tax to Local Government that fails to represent the interests of the community they are appointed to represent. Councillors and officers often lack the capability to deliver the outcomes required by society within a budget.
These people would face capability proceedings in the private sector. The money wasted is huge when you add it up. Across the country it will run into billions of pounds.
I speak to people in other parts of the country who are witnesses to projects that cost the tax payer millions and fails to bring benefit to the communities the officers and councillors are appointed to serve.
Until the culture changes, and these individuals are held both responsible and accountable nothing will improve.
Sadly incompetence prevails.
The tax payer is just a ‘ Cash Cow’ for these self serving people.
It is not surprising most of us are sick of politicians both at National and Local Level.
The proposed Local Government re-organisation is just another example of an increased burden on the tax payer. I have no doubt it will see no savings to the tax payer. It will used as an excuse to increase taxation.
AND CEC hasn’t the funding for such increases…. oh let’s see, a simple solution, just hike rates for those of us who are paying rates and not getting any benefits.
Simple. Have evening meetings and cut down on the bureaucracy, reports of 200+ pages are far to long. Just visit the website to see the jargon, new world expressions eg deep dive etc in reports that mainly say very little. This pay rise cannot be based on good performance otherwise we would not be in this position we find ourselves in. Next will come officer increases.