Letter: Councillors’ Expenses

Below is a letter to the editor sent by Ken Hulme, who represents Delph and Denshaw as an independent on Saddleworth Parish Council. I’ve reproduced the letter in full. If you would like to respond to the points made in the letter, you can either leave a comment below this post, or send an e-mail by clicking on the Contact option at the top of this page. If you would like an e-mail published on this website then please mark it as a letter to the editor, and I’ll be happy to do so.

“At 2:55pm on September 11th 2001 when millions of people were transifxed by the terrible television images of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York, Government spin doctor Jo Moore issued that notorious e-mail to press officers: ‘It is now a good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors’ expenses?’ Most people remember the first part of that disgraceful e-mail but forget she was talking about yet further measures to increase councillors’ income.

“Ms Moore, who lost her job over the affair, was at least right that yet further increases in councillors’ expenses was bad news. Very bad news for local democracy. I was a London Borough Councillor 25 years ago. We didn’t get any pay, just out of pocket expenses. When the local parties wanted to raise funds to fight elections they had to raise money in the local community through social events, 100 clubs, jumble sales and the like. Our campaigns were modest, we had to keep in touch with the local community and we needed a large and active local party branch. We were accountable to our local community and to local party members whose support we relied on.

“Turning local councillors effectively into paid employees of the local council has changed all that. With nearly £1m a year given to Oldham Councillors in allowances and expenses, the compulsory 10% levy, known as ‘tithing’ which the Liberal Democrats impose on their councillors means that huge amounts of money are available for their election campaigns. This is effectively public subsidy for political parties by stealth.

“It means that local council groups now call the shots in their local parties – ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune.’ Local councillors have been turned into an increasingly remote group of professional politicians who no longer need to keep in touch with their local community in the old way. Instead we see huge sums of money, £33,000 this year alone, sent off to Party Headquarters by the Oldham Lib Dem group of councillors, with thousands more distributed to local parties.

“Here in Saddleworth we are being inundated with expensive pre-election materials by the Lib Dems – sometimes printed in London or Derby and more often than not delivered by the Royal Mail. Elections are seen as glossy mail marketing exercises conducted by an increasingly remote clique of professional politicians. And we are paying for it out of our council tax.

“For the sake of healthy local democracy, councillors’ allowances have to be drastically cut back. Councillors should be motivated by public service and civic duty – not money – otherwise our local democracy just doesn’t work.”

Cllr Ken Hulme

Author: Jude Gidney - Editor

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