Cost-Savings at Arun Council: How Councillors could help
July 2024
Arun Council is facing a major deficit, needing to save around £6.5 million over the next few years, and £2.1 million in 2024/25.. This is a responsibility that our elected Councillors have to consider, and there surely will be need to make savings e.g. in staffing, services etc.
One area they could consider, in the view of The Bognor Herald, is Councillors Allowances. These are paid to Councillors, they are NOT out-of-pocket expenses which they also can claim (eg fares, petrol, IT etc) but a Basic Allowance BA simply for having been elected. There are also Special Responsibility Allowances SRA paid on top of the BA re eg being Council Leader, Committee Chairman etc.
In the current year 2023/24 the budget for BA is £355,240k, for SRA £114,100k. The total this year thus is £469,340k.
Not paying this sum (which will increase next year and so on) would save over the next three years could thus save at least £1.413 million. Just next year, it would cover nearly 19% of the required savings, no small percentage. £1.413m is 22% of the total £6.5m deficit.
To achieve this, all Councillors would have to give up their Allowances voluntarily for the remainder of their terms. Apart from making a substantial contribution to the solution of the problem, are there other reasons why it’s justified to make this suggestion?
YES. Because being a Councillor is NOT paid employment, it is an entirely voluntary role. Just as being a Trustee of a Charity is. In the latter case, Trustees cannot be paid such allowances, they can get out-of-pocket expenses. Having been a charity trustee over the years, I have fully accepted that legal requirement of charity law, and those charities have dealt with issues in people’s lives and had to account for management and expenditure.
So one asks, why should Councillors be treated differently?
Some may say, it will put off poorer people from becoming councillors. The fact is, and I have been in this position, if you receive a Councillor’s Allowance and eg you’re on Pension Credit and receive Housing Benefit, all that happens is that that Allowance counts against your Housing Benefit entitlement which means, in effect, that person’s rent is paid by local charge-payers and not state-funded Housing Benefit.
Other Councillors receive their BA/SRA even if they have normal paid jobs. In one case, a person who was both an Arun and County Cllr received nearly £40k in one recent year in terms of BA and SRA.
When I first became an Arun Cllr in 1995, these Allowances had not come into force, we were paid £25 a meeting meant to cover any work absence due to being at meetings. This seems to me to have been a better system, maybe covering a two hour meeting.
We need people in these roles who are there because they believe it is worth making those contributions to local affairs whether or not they are paid an allowance.
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