City councillors give themselves 4% pay rise

Civic chiefs in Gloucester have voted to give themselves a pay rise without even debating the proposals.

Councillors at Gloucester City Council voted at North Warehouse last night (January 26) to award themselves a 4.04% allowance increase.

This means the minimum allowance elected city officials will be entitled to is £6,465.18.

The special responsibility allowance for the council leader is going up to £22,628.13 a year and the deputy leader’s allowance which will increase to £14,546.66 from April 2023.

Cabinet members will be entitled to £11,314.07 per year and the allowance for councillors who chair the planning and overview and scrutiny committees will be set at £5,172.14.

There is also a special responsibility allowance for opposition group leaders and their deputies. This will be £6,465.18 and £1,553.53 respectively.

Being the city mayor also entitles councillors to an allowance of £3,879.11 and £1,242.83 for the sheriff.

The chairmen of the audit and governance and licensing and enforcement committees will be set £3,232.59 while the general purposes committee chair will see their allowance of £621.41 deleted.

The last detailed review of members’ allowances took place in 2019 when only minor changes were made to the scheme and the link to the local government pay award was retained for a further four years.

Since then, with the exception of two small changes, allowances have only been adjusted in line with the local government pay award, as previously agreed.

The independent remuneration panel, who came up with the recommendations, were newly appointed in 2021 and began its work in September 2022.

The panel met three times in the course of review, and conducted a survey and a series of councillor interviews.

The panel recommended an increase of 4.04% for the basic allowance for the 2022-23 scheme, which will be backdated to April 1, 2022.

The proposals were brought before the full council meeting last night but councillors decided not to debate the recommendations and to simply vote on them. They voted unanimously in favour of the pay rise.

By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter

Gloucester News Centre – http://gloucesternewscentre.co.uk