There was a fairly radical idea discussed at Monday’s meeting of Rayleigh Town Council – to reduce the number of Town Councillors from 23 to 16. The proposal was moved by Conservative councillor Dave Sperring, and received cross-party support – though a couple of Conservatives voted against.
Dave Sperring’s reasoning went something like this – when Rayleigh Town Council was set up, it was the largest parish council in the area, and so was established with a large number of councillors – 23. At that time the councillors didn’t receive any allowances, so the number of councillors didn’t affect the council budget. Now they do receive an allowance, and reducing the number of councillors by 7 would save around ?10,000 per year. (Some other parishes, such as Rawreth, still don’t have an allowance system)
Experience has shown that the number of councillors might be reduced without diminishing effectiveness -after all, there are only 16 District councillors covering Rayleigh.
At the moment nearly all wards in Rayleigh/ Rawreth have 3 Town Councillors and 2 District Councillors. The only exception is Downhall and Rawreth, which has 2 Rayleigh Town Councillors for the Downhall part, 7 Rawreth Parish Councillors for the Rawreth part, and 2 District Councillors for the ward as a whole.
Councillor Sperring’s proposal would be to change the number of councillors from the 2012 elections down to just 2 in each ward. It would save around ?8000 a year in allowances.
There were some fairly strong views expressed. June Lumley said it was the most sensible thing she had heard for a long time, Jane Carvalho said it would be a good decision, Ron Oatham agreed it should be looked at, Chris Lumley completely agreed but warned that a slimmed-down council “couldn’t carry any dead weight”.
Roland Adams was fiercely against, he clearly felt that the seven lost seats would all be Conservative ones. (The current make-up of the council is 17 Conservatives, 2 Lib Dems and 2 Independents). He reminded the council that “Many of us had spent years building up the Conservative majority”.
This was immediately countered by fellow Conservative Cheryl Roe, who said “This council isn’t political. We’re all here for the people of Rayleigh”.
The motion was passed, though there are a lot of procedural hoops to go through with the District Council and the Electoral Commission. It may not be possible for it to happen by the 2012 elections, or to happen at all.
Reported today in the local authority journal, the MJ, the Local Government Boundary Commission (LGBCE) has launched two new consultations, which will, between them, make it easier for Councils to change the number of members they have, or go for a complete merger.
Perhaps RDC would like follow suit by re-considering its own direct bill for member allowances by reducing the number of members per ward from two to one and where there are three to just two?
I don’t think that the quality of representation would suffer but the bill could be reduced substantially at a time where all opportunities for cuts should be explored.
Councillors being made redundant is not out of the question nor should it be.
I take the same view as Cheryl Roe in that Town and Parish councils are about working together to do your best for the residents you serve and that party politics should be kept out of it as far as possible.
As Chairman of Hullbridge Parish Council I try to get along with the people I meet from other parties. I am very pleased to say that locally that there are plenty of people from other parties that have always been civil towards me and helped me to help Hullbridge.
Anyone from Hullbridge reading this may be interested to learn that we do not take an allowance for our work.
John, sorry, I disagree with you strongly here. I think cutting the number of councillors does reduce the quality of representation.
I believe one of the virtues of Rochford DC is that we have a relatively low number of residents for each councillor to look after. The workload isn’t too high and lets people who become councillors still lead ordinary lives. In the right circumstances that can attract a higher calibre of councillor and a better council.
But you are right in one thing – the total allowances budget needs to be cut.
I think that wards having more than one Councillor is a good thing because there are times when a Councillor is ill or can not make a meeting though work or family reasons. More than one Councillor gives a far greater chance of there being some representation for residents at most full council meetings and someone to be available for residents when needed most of the time. I agree with Chris in that I want to be represented by people who lead lives that include plenty of other things in addition to being a Councillor and that this allows more people the chance to come forward.
Chris
I note that you strongly disagree that the budget fot Member Allowances should not be reduced by reducing the number of Members of RDC.
I also recall that the Council unequivocally rejected your Motion to abolish the Cabinet System where Executive power and the largest part of the workload is invested in just 8 Members of the Council who make all the decisions on the Council.
I would be most interested in hearing what you think the Council should do to reduce the budget for Member Allowances asssuming that you would also not advocate reducing the basic Member Allowances.
John, to be really precise, the motion was about welcoming a government decision to allow councils to get rid cabinet systems. So although the Tory block vote was very disappointing, it doesn’t bind the council in any way against actually implementing a change.
The Tory District Council group is becoming isolated on this. I heard one senior Rayleigh Tory councillor speak out ‘gainst it this week – and they didn’t win friends by voting against a motion supporting their own party in government.
But more importantly, the cabinet system is an expensive dance , and when you dance near the edge of a big financial cliff, you end up taking a big fall sooner or later…
Regarding the basic members allowance, it’s a matter of record that I led an administration that cut allowances by 10%. (circa 1992) I doubt though whether there’s a willingness to cut it nowadays.