: THE YEARLY table of councillor allowances

Rocke

No-one's mentioned anything but just in case there's a few points to note:

* There's 42 Members but 56 councillors have been paid.
That's because a councillor ceases to be a councillor on 31st May after an election. Therefore the extra 14 is down to 14 councillors who did not get re-elected but continued to receive payment, as is their right.

* On the other hand all new Members ( such as me ) only received roughly 11/12 of a yearly allowance, since one doesn't become a Member until signing the pledge, as it were.
This means that next year most of us will show an 9% increase, but that will be because we will have received a full year's allowance, not 11 months.

* Expenses payments ( almost all of it on Car Allowance at 40p per mile ) do not - and as you'll see cannot - take into account the use of the Civic Car. Where a Member avails themselves of the privilege of using the vehicle there will be no claim for expenses lodged by them.
This means that some Members who have claimed no travelling expenses might have done so because they have been ferried about in the civic car.

* ( The major one as far as I'm concerned ).
Records of attendances aren't published but I understand that the independent review body is recommending this as a forthcoming change.
I'm hoping, however, that this administration will in future publish the number of committees, panels etc. that a Member is part of, together with the total number of attendances for the period in question.

Carolyn

The minutes of meetings and those attending meetings have always been published on the BG web site although in the past they have almost always been a few months behind, can't post a link since I can find the relevant link but it leads nowhere.

Press releases have also always been published in the past but the expenses have never been included, unless they are in a different section but I have always failed to find them if they are.

A stated on a previous post the subject of the use of the civic car came up in the Gwent Gazette a few years ago. I can appreciate that those unable to drive would use the civic car, it is not so much the question of how much more it would cost but those that do use it appear not to claim any expenses, not all those reading the local papers are aware of this.

The fact that some councillors appear to incur more expenses than others when they are published yearly could reflect on one's choice of a candidate during election. A percentage of the yearly cost of using the civic car should be included in all publications if the council wishes to encourage a culture of openness within local government.