Pay freeze for district councillors

South Holland district councillors have voted to freeze the allowances it pays to members until 2023.

Members followed the advice of an Independent Remuneration Panel which argued they were already the best paid in Lincolnshire.

The basic allowance for a South Holland councillor is £6,255 a year.

The next highest in Lincolnshire is South Kesteven who pay councillors £5,628 though that has a population of 138,900 compared to South Holland’s 91,200, the second lowest population in the county.

The leader of South Holland District Council, which is currently Lord Gary Porter, will have his leader’s allowance frozen at £20,140, which is also the highest in Lincolnshire and more than double the amount the leader of Lincoln City council receives for the same role.

The report of the Independent Remuneration Panel states: “South Holland councillors are well remunerated for their roles compared to broadly similar sized authorities within the county.

“The basic allowance in South Holland is higher than any of the comparative councils and the Leader’s Allowance, on the basis of which all other special responsibility allowances are determined, is similarly higher than all but Breckland (the Norfolk council South Holland shares services with).”

Some councillors looked to include a rise in future years arguing it could lead to a big rise in three years time.

Coun Angela Newton: “We have to make sure that we make it known we value what members do.

“Our members put a lot more time and effort in to doing this than most people in the district believe or know about.

“I feel we could end up in a car parking situation if we let this slide. If we don’t do anything for years we’ll be looking at a big hike in the future.”

It was backed by Coun Bryan Alcock who said: “There are those of us in the chamber that, for example, never claim travelling allowance. That’s our decision.

“There’s members who don’t receive anything other than the basic allowance.”

However with the council working to make £4.4m worth of savings as part of its recently announced budget, some councillors felt it would be the wrong time.

Coun Andrew Woolf said: “We’ve worked hard and we’ve had to look at our budget very, very hard.

“I don’t think the time is right to be looking at increasing the amount we’re remunerated with.”

Coun Harry Drury added: “I fully support the reasoning for wanting to increase for inflation.

“We’re all working hard for our communities but looking at the budget, and as we’re looking to save in certain areas, I feel it would be inappropriate at this moment to agree a raise in allowances now but to look at it possibly in the future.”