Councillors under pressure

I understand that one of our Babergh councillors may well resign from the council a year early.  I am not altogether surprised.  Being a councillor is very enjoyable and rewarding, but it is becoming increasingly hard to perform the role and also hold down a regular job.   This is a change from the past when people generally did council work alongside their work with little problem.  The truth is however that the demands on councillors’ time are steadily increasing year on year.

The temptation to throw in the towel may also in part be prompted by the feeling that councillors seem to be under attack from many sides at present.  This is a dispiriting feeling when one is doing one’s best. 

For a start the EADT is becoming increasingly interested in our attendance records.  Not content with sending Freedom of Information requests about appearance at Council Meetings, which I suppose is fair enough since attending these meetings is a key part of the role, they are now approaching Parish Councils to find out how often our faces are seen there.  For those of us with rather a lot of parishes getting round them all regularly can be a problem but most of us do our best.

The press is also very interested in the level of our financial allowances.   You might argue that being a councillor should be a voluntary role as it was in the past.  However, as it becomes increasingly time consuming, often absorbing around 30 hours or so a week,  it seems unreasonable to ask people to do it for nothing.  Some payment also means that those with modest means and younger people are more likely to apply.   An independent commission has recently suggested that allowances rise by 1%, the first increase for around 4 years, and this has already attracted press comment and speculation, plus an atmosphere of embarrassed soul searching among elected members.

Then there is the Inland Revenue, who have clearly decided that being a councillor is a ‘job’ by any other name.  In their wisdom they plan to tax all fuel allowances that relate to journeys to and from the council’s offices from home from 5^th April.  They argue that the council office is our ‘place of work’ even though most of the time that councillors are working is spent either at home or around and about in the Ward or District.

Ironically the opposite view was reached by another branch of government this week.  It was decided that councillors can no longer participate in the Local Government Pension scheme because they are not ‘workers’. 

Thus is seems that we can have a 'place of work' when it comes to paying tax, but not be ‘workers’ when it comes to having pension rights.   It is hard to see how the powers that be can have it both ways!

In any event, it does not make us feel particularly valued, either by central Government, or by society as a whole.  It is not surprising that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find new councillors.