It was a shameful day for Wiltshire Council when the Conservative administration used its majority to ram through huge increases in the allowances paid to the councillors in the Cabinet.
I thought one of the most extraordinary arguments in favour of these increases was that they would increase public interest in becoming councillors.
On the contrary, the public will surely have been sickened by this display of collective greed.
As of now, Coun Scott, as council leader, is taking home nearly £15,000 more a year for doing exactly the same job she was before last week. Part of her massive increase comes from the couple of lines in the council’s decisions that has removed the restriction on councillors having more than one special responsibility allowance. This alone has given several leading Conservatives a large increase and permitted Coun Scott to get an additional £9,216 allowance for chairing a committee which she has previously done without any extra payment.
Your report was right to highlight that the central element of this package of increases was the hike in the allowances paid to Coun Scott. This was crucial as almost all the other leadership allowances are paid as a proportion of hers.
This meant that those proposals could be cleverly presented as “remaining at x per cent of the leader’s allowance” when they too were increases of over 20 per cent. It was for that reason that I not only voted against the increases but also proposed an amendment which would have deferred Coun Scott’s increases for at least a year.
This would have recognised the austerity which most Wiltshire residents and council staff have to live with day-to-day. It would also have postponed the other allowance increases and was, of course, defeated by Coun Scott and the Conservative majority, along with the various other proposals which opposition councillors put forward to try and bring some sense to the decision.
This was a bad day for local democracy and for public trust in Wiltshire Council.
Coun Chris Caswill, Independent, Chippenham Monkton ward.
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