We are repeatedly told by both national and our local governments that we are having to cut back and that our public services need to be raped in the name of austerity. On a local level we are used to the mantra "it's all the previous Labour government's fault", yet throughout the time that Labour were in power in central government, Adur has been run by the Tories, who were the ones who were actually spending the money on a local level, which they claim that they now need to claw back.
Some might say that it was irresponsible of the Labour government to give so much money to Adur's Tories to p*ss up the wall on frivolous luxuries, all the time their buildings were falling into disrepair and no thought was ever given to any long term plan to sustain the local economy. So inevitably, when the cut to their funding came, the local Tories did what their kind always do, sell the family jewels, in order to obtain short term financial stability (which they haven't achieved). I'm sure that we are not alone in this and that it is happening all over the country.
On a local level we are sick of the "consultations" that only give us the choice between being screwed over or screwing someone less well off/older/more disabled than ourselves over. With the powers entrusted to local authorities we should be able to prepare and sustain ourselves far better than these people appear to have done in recent times, all the time, blaming it on a central government that left office 3 years ago.
Anyway, what do you think that the local councillors have done to share our suffering? Well, they've given themselves enough cash to cover the shortfall that the rest of us have to shoulder. If we take a look at what the leader and vice leader were getting in 2010-2011, by way of allowances....
... and compare it to what they were receiving two years later in 2012-2013...
... we can see just how much they're cutting back.
There have been no figures published for 2013-2014, but Worthing have approved a 1% pay rise, backdated to April 2013, so I expect that ADC will receive that and more besides, as they have repeatedly claimed that they need to brought up to the same rates as WBC despite representing far fewer people and being a far smaller council, covering a far smaller area. I expect that this will also be backdated to April as well, just as soon as they appoint another "independent" allowances panel after the last one resigned after their findings being ignored by the councillors who wanted a bigger slice of the pie than was recommended.
The new advisory panel on allowances should be in place soon, after sneaking in the minimum advertising of the posts for which applications closed a couple of weeks back. I've been keeping an eye out for these ads but seem to have missed them, although I expect that the people who are likely to play ball were told personally by their mates in council to apply though, so expect more rises to be announced just as soon as some more puppets are in place.
As an aside, I have in recent years, been applying for every "layperson" or "independent person" post that I have seen advertised, and even chased some that weren't advertised, and it appears that it is incredibly difficult to be "independent" without already being preselected by a senior executive for the post. Try it yourself, you're guaranteed to come up against a brick wall, it seems like living in an area for nearly 40 years and receiving services from the relevant service provider, whilst not being a member of any political party didn't make me suitably independent, maybe I was doing something wrong all these years and you will be judged to be independent enough, you never know.
Good luck with it, because if you're not in the gang, you won't get to play.
ATAB
K
