Cheshire East pays £1.27m in allowances to councillors

by Lisa Reeves

Thursday 15^th December 2016

Thu 15^th Dec 2016

Cheshire East Council has paid a total of £1,272,862.55 in allowances to Council Members during the previous financial year 2015-16, down £529.69 from the previous year.

Councillors receive a basic annual allowance of £11,443.83 on top of which general expenses are paid along with allowances for special responsibilities, subsistence, travel and dependants' carers.

The £1.27 million was divided between 111 councillors rather than the usual 82, due to last year being an election year - with £935,242 paid in basic allowances, £275,223 in special responsibility allowances and £60,215 in travel allowances.

The largest payments went to Cabinet members including the current leader Rachel Bailey who was paid a total of £29,326, which included a £14,780 special responsibility allowance and £3102 for travel which was the highest amount paid to an individual. Deputy Leader Cllr David Brown who was paid a total of £30,155, which also included a £16,300 special responsibility allowance.

Whilst the former leader Michael Jones, who announced his resignation in December 2015, was paid £38,108 which included a special allowance of £24,750.

Although payments to Directors of Council Owned Companies are not included in the Councils' Allowance scheme they were included in the figures released for completeness and show that an additional £119,585.44 was paid to directors, up from £92,766.85 the previous financial year. The highest payment of £11,048 was paid to Cllr Jamie Macrae.

The record pf payments for April 1st 2015 to 31st March 2016 are available to view on the Cheshire East Council website.

Tags:: Cheshire East Council

Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

DELETED ACCOUNT

Thursday 15^th December 2016 at 9:26 am

So - the bottom line is:

Allowances - for the ordinary Cheshire East Councillor - these are within reason.
Special Responsibility allowances an extra £275,223.
Then right at the end - the crux of the matter, "Directors of Council Owned Companies" - a further £119,000.

Questions
How many people have both a "Responsibility Allowance" and a "Directorship Allowance"?
How many people have more than 1 directorship allowance?
How are we getting value for money when these "Council Owned Companies" repeatedly fail to deliver either services or value for money?

Rick Andrews

Thursday 15^th December 2016 at 11:04 am

What is the process for appointing directors to council owned companies and how is suitability and qualification for the role determined, if the appointments are made by the council it surely amounts to nepotism? Judging by the performance of these companies, the main selection criteria are probably the ability to waste money and lead the company to failure. Ignoring of course the photo opportunities and ego boosting appearances and talk of "millions of pounds to be saved". We get the councillors we vote for, we are not voting for company directors though. Makes you think.

Peter Davenport

Wednesday 21^st December 2016 at 6:54 pm

What I find interesting re the payments mentioned above, is the fact that Councillor Jones is mentioned. It is almost a year ago, that Councillor Jones got into trouble, and the matter now seems to have gone dead, notwithstanding that an enquiry will run around emails, letters and phone calls. So why does it take a year to sort all this lot out, either to prosecute or not. To me and many others, I guess action is been done to get the matter forgotten and that people forget. Thank you, Cheshire East for reminding us of his presence on the Council.
Apart from the above, as regards the councillors expenses, I would like to know if they are paid mileage, when they go to Sandbach to meetings, offices etc, as if they do, this is in total breach of the Inland Revenue rules, as expenses cannot be claimed for going to your place of work, ie the Council offices. Clarity, please.