How much are our Carmarthenshire Senior Councillors worth? Well, according to them, a lot. They are, the Executive Board say, at the same level of responsibility as MP's and AM's and imply they should be paid accordingly, presumably in the region of 50-60k . So they rejected the recommendation on pay from Welsh Government, a document limiting the number of the highest paid Councillors and their salaries which suggested a modest pay cut..
The Councils's Executive is claiming that the Independent Remuneration Panel Wales was not Independent at all as they had received a letter from a WAG minister in 2015 and should therefore be ignored..
Spot the talent!
Other expenses are also usually larger for the better paid who tend to travel more, may need a personal car and driver, and attend events at Council Expense
What are the qualifications for the top jobs such as, Exec board, planning committee etc?. The civic appointments are in the gift of the Parties who take turn to nominate a trusted and loyal member as deputy chair who then becomes chair the following year. There is never a proper election for the posts. The other appointments are mysterious and usually seem to require little more than a great affection for the status quo and a willingness to grovel to the political
Over the years I've seen plenty of people from all parties here trapped in the web lured by pathetic privileges, titles and, of course, extra money, usually actually encouraged and appointed by their own parties. They present themselves as naive with good intentions at first, but soon learn the talents of spin and end up sounding like they are reading off a script issued by someone else, and one suspects they may have indeed given up the troublesome habit of speaking for themselves. Once you get used to extra money its hard to give it up and you may do questionable things just to keep in the club.
Other Councillors are rated as harmless,backbench,cannon fodder and generally ignored and the few troublemakers like me just generally harassed,dismissed as lunatics and eccentrics and occasionally bear the brunt of some unpleasant disincentives in the hope that we will go away eventually and leave the poor council to function without any serious criticism.
The CEO I'm told, apparently arranges the political coalition deals and may even suggest to groups who their leaders should be. This may be true or just another well learnt recitation to absolve Senior Councillors from blame for their more dubious actions. Its said that the corruptible may be attracted to power,my theory is that they are actively recruited here by those who can pick the most greedy and suggestible out of the pack and exploit them to the hilt. When Labour changed their leader to someone with a few principles they were out of power in no time and Plaid put in.
Are they worth it? Should they fret that they are not getting enough? Most of them are getting another income as well, either from other employment or retirement pensions, reflecting their tendency to be middle aged or elderly. Large salaries aresupposed to attract young people as councillors but at least here few younger councillors get any promotion at all to the big bucks.
We are now instructed to produce annual reports, given a template which can be filled in for us listing our committees, outside appointments and attendance in council. Are these the important things when the Council is run by a small clique, scrutiny committees do very little real scrutiny and most ordinary Councillors make very little contribution to policy or action other than supporting political group policy.? I wonder if a list of major council policy decisions in our reports together with which way we voted would give a better insight. On the other hand how many people will actually check their Councillor's annual report online?
Current salaries, for the record, are therefore just as last year's:-
Leader 48,000
Deputy leaders [2] 31,250
Other executive Councillors [7] 29,000
Chairs of committees [7] 22,000
Leader of the opposition [1] 22,000
Civic Chair of Council [1] 21,500
Deputy Civic Chair [1] 16,000
Ordinary Councillors [54 ]13,300
The pay recommendations would have led to some executive board members dropping a few thousand pounds from their salaries, Fat chance!
The pay recommendations would have led to some executive board members dropping a few thousand pounds from their salaries, Fat chance!
I hope the Carmarthenshire people read your blog Sian. Ever since I whistleblew I realised most officers and members prefer to cover up wrongdoing and an employee raising concerns is the kind of person that has to be silenced and removed if possible. My own County Councillor allowed officers and an executive member to stop her giving any support to me without even questioning the order. She was on the scrutiny committee which covered the department concerned in the wrongdoing yet she questioned nothing. I totally agree with everything you have said Sian. HR realised stopping a member speaking to her constituent was not right but chose not to tell the Director of Social Care who told the CEO he was asking that by approaching my County Councillor (CC) I was breaking the rules of my suspension. The CEO would have known officers cannot stop a constituent speaking to their CC but he did nothing about it.
ReplyDeleteThe top 5 are probably well over the average wage in your area, and for a part time job. Nice work if you can get it and you can get it if you kiss a***
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