Paying your Councillors

Town and Parish Councillors are paid nothing. East Herts Councillors get allowances and expenses, which now total an average £8,600 per Councillor (Budget 1999 – £90,000, Budget 2005 - £430,000).  Many Town and Parish Councillors do more work than District Councillors – do you recall being consulted on paying large allowances to East Herts Councillors?

The draft of this page is being vetted by our Legal Advisers, and will be posted as soon as possible.

One unfortunate side-effect of the establishment of the Standards Board for England in 2001 is that it has stifled open debate. I have seen colleagues suffer unnecessary stress from complaints to the Standards Board, when all they have tried to do is act in the best interests of their electors. All of my colleagues on East Herts Council are good people who give up their time to serve the community; I may think many of them have made some bad choices, but local democracy will suffer if we drive out good people and do not allow people to speak openly and without fear.

We want to make sure we do not fall foul of the law, but we also want to make sure we tell you everything you can be told, and therefore we are submitting detailed text on this website to our retained solicitors for comment before posting.