Central Bedfordshire Council cuts councillor allowances
Friday, 19 April 2024
Councillors agreed last night (Thursday, 18 April 2024) at the meeting of the Full Council to reduce the allowances for councillors in order to contribute to savings being made by the Council.
In February, the Council agreed a range of plans to reduce spending by £25million in 2024/25, one of the initiatives was to reconsider councillor allowances. The proposals agreed at yesterday’s meeting confirms how those savings will be made.
The meeting considered the recommendations of an independent panel which reviewed the Council’s allowance scheme. The independent panel compared the Council’s scheme to other councils and considered the views of councillors to inform its recommendations.
An IT allowance will no longer be provided to any councillors, the Council will provide the IT equipment councillors need to fulfil their roles, saving £43,000 per year.
Special Responsibility Allowances (SRAs) are provided to some councillor roles to reflect the increased responsibility and workload. The Council voted to reduce these allowances, saving a up to £120,515.
Councillor Adam Zerny, Leader of the Council said:
When we took over as the administration a year ago, we didn’t feel it was right to take all of the councillor allowances available to us. This saved the Council £100,000 in the last year alone. The decision this week by the Council sets this change in stone and shows councillors understand the importance of spending public money appropriately.
Many members of the public are struggling at the moment, and we as elected councillors need to share this burden.
The councillor allowance scheme will be reviewed again next year.