Monday 13 July 2009

Counsel for a poor mortal

Update at 12:15, 14/07/2009:

oldnat (of Blether with Brian fame) has helpfully pointed out that Stirling council split their expenses figures, one set from April 2007 to 3rd May 2007 and the other from 4th May 2007 to March 2008. Shetland have done the same and I suspect (but couldn't find the info) that the same is true for Clackmannanshire. It seems that the Beeb 's geeks have not noticed this though - out of 467 councils in their spreadsheet 125 have an average cost per councillor below £6000. The obvious moral of the story is to check the source data...and not to trust the Beeb too much!

The revised table minus Clacks is below. Happily Orkney and Shetland are now bosom buddies in the table, not much difference between their costs. But I'm still puzzled by Midlothian and West Lothian Councils...why does a councillor in West Lothian cost on average £10,000 more than one in Midlothian? Anyone got any idea? Might dig a bit deeper into the council websites when time allows...

Council # Cllrs Total cost* Cost/cllr
West Lothian Council 32 £835,518.00 £26,109.94
Inverclyde Council 20 £474,598.35 £23,729.92
Argyll and Bute Council 36 £817,143.63 £22,698.43
Highland Council 80 £1,727,849.81 £21,598.12
North Lanarkshire Council 70 £1,478,710.00 £21,124.43
Edinburgh City Council 58 £1,216,614.85 £20,976.12
Scottish Borders Council 34 £698,538.00 £20,545.24
Shetland Islands Council 22 £446,618.20 £20,300.83
Orkney Islands Council 21 £425,911.34 £20,281.49
Western Isles Council 31 £624,554.00 £20,146.90
East Ayrshire Council 32 £634,824.94 £19,838.28
Aberdeenshire Council 68 £1,337,062.36 £19,662.68
Glasgow City Council 79 £1,544,427.00 £19,549.71
South Lanarkshire Council 67 £1,308,586.30 £19,531.14
East Lothian District Council 23 £440,939.00 £19,171.26
East Dunbartonshire Council 24 £459,825.02 £19,159.38
Moray Council 26 £496,496.00 £19,096.00
Dumfries and Galloway Council 47 £889,981.00 £18,935.77
Perth and Kinross Council 41 £761,610.87 £18,575.87
Angus Council 29 £536,249.00 £18,491.34
North Ayrshire Council 30 £554,398.84 £18,479.96
Aberdeen City Council 43 £794,498.00 £18,476.70
West Dunbartonshire Council 22 £406,113.12 £18,459.69
Stirling Council 22 £403,958.68 £18,361.76
Fife Council 78 £1,418,840.30 £18,190.26
East Renfrewshire Council 20 £350,773.00 £17,538.65
Falkirk Council 32 £545,823.55 £17,056.99
Renfrewshire Council 40 £671,787.24 £16,794.68
South Ayrshire Council 30 £494,514.00 £16,483.80
Dundee City Council 29 £477,115.38 £16,452.25
Midlothian Council 18 £293,157.27 £16,286.52
Clackmannanshire Council 18 ? ?

Source: BBC Research + oldnat's investigative powers


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Perhaps someone can help me out with the following...

BBC Research has produced an interesting list of councillor pay and expenses for 2007-08, broken down by government region and also by council. Glancing at the figures for Scotland (see table at the bottom of this post) I noticed huge variations in the cost per councillor. For example...



Council
# CllrsTotal cost*Cost/cllr


Orkney Islands Council21£425,911.34£20,281.49


Shetland Islands Council22£50,476.63£2,294.39

*Total cost = Pay, expenses and allowances for 2007-08.

No, I haven't got those numbers wrong. Can anyone shed some light on this? Why the vast discrepancy between two councils that, to an ignorant mainland loon at least, look like they should be broadly comparable? The only thing I could think of was the Shetland oil fund. But then again I'm pretty sure Clackmannanshire doesn't have one of those, yet they seem to be blessed with much cheaper councillors than Midlothian...

Council# CllrsTotal cost*Cost/cllr
Midlothian Council18£293,157.27£16,286.52
Clackmannanshire Council18£69,934.61£3,885.26

Now for the really weird part. Despite the yawning chasm in the table above, Midlothian have the 4th lowest cost per councillor in Scotland. In fact it's actually Clackmannanshire that pips them to the bronze medal, albeit by a whopping £12,401.26 per councillor! In other words no council in Scotland has a cost per councillor between £3,885.26 and £16,286.52. What's going on?

To round things off, the 22 councillors of Stirling Council cost a total of £48,708.08, i.e. £2,214.00 per councillor. In contrast, the 32 councillors of West Lothian cost £835,518.00 in total, at an average of £26,109.94 per councillor. Why can 3 of our councils give us councillors at an average cost below £4,000, yet all the rest cost from £16,000-£26,000?!?

Now, there may well be a very good reason for this bizarrely skewed distribution of costs, in fact I really hope there is. If so I'd love to know what it is! Please respond via the comments box below.

Council # Cllrs Total cost* Cost/cllr
West Lothian Council 32 £835,518.00 £26,109.94
Inverclyde Council 20 £474,598.35 £23,729.92
Argyll and Bute Council 36 £817,143.63 £22,698.43
Highland Council 80 £1,727,849.81 £21,598.12
North Lanarkshire Council 70 £1,478,710.00 £21,124.43
Edinburgh City Council 58 £1,216,614.85 £20,976.12
Scottish Borders Council 34 £698,538.00 £20,545.24
Orkney Islands Council 21 £425,911.34 £20,281.49
Western Isles Council 31 £624,554.00 £20,146.90
East Ayrshire Council 32 £634,824.94 £19,838.28
Aberdeenshire Council 68 £1,337,062.36 £19,662.68
Glasgow City Council 79 £1,544,427.00 £19,549.71
South Lanarkshire Council 67 £1,308,586.30 £19,531.14
East Lothian District Council 23 £440,939.00 £19,171.26
East Dunbartonshire Council 24 £459,825.02 £19,159.38
Moray Council 26 £496,496.00 £19,096.00
Dumfries and Galloway Council 47 £889,981.00 £18,935.77
Perth and Kinross Council 41 £761,610.87 £18,575.87
Angus Council 29 £536,249.00 £18,491.34
North Ayrshire Council 30 £554,398.84 £18,479.96
Aberdeen City Council 43 £794,498.00 £18,476.70
West Dunbartonshire Council 22 £406,113.12 £18,459.69
Fife Council 78 £1,418,840.30 £18,190.26
East Renfrewshire Council 20 £350,773.00 £17,538.65
Falkirk Council 32 £545,823.55 £17,056.99
Renfrewshire Council 40 £671,787.24 £16,794.68
South Ayrshire Council 30 £494,514.00 £16,483.80
Dundee City Council 29 £477,115.38 £16,452.25
Midlothian Council 18 £293,157.27 £16,286.52
Clackmannanshire Council 18 £69,934.61 £3,885.26
Shetland Islands Council 22 £50,476.63 £2,294.39
Stirling Council 22 £48,708.08 £2,214.00

Source: BBC Research

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Councillor's pay is set in law, with councillors who have additional duties (eg chairing a committee) getting a bit more. It's possible that in smaller councils the high ratio of extra duties to councillors skews the pay upwards. Though this doesn't account for Clackmannanshire and Stirling's low costs for small numbers of councils. Another thing to take into account is the expenses: councillors serving constituents in remote islands will have higher travel costs as they will be paying for air and ferry travel. Those closer to Edinburgh - where they might be called for national meetings etc - and with a smaller geographical area to cover, should have lower travel expenses. All of which still doesn't explain why West Lothian tops the charts!

forfar-loon said...

Yes, all good points.

From a quick glance through the detailed lists it seems like travel expenses can be highly variable, even within a council - anything from £0 to £4000+! Lots of "fact-finding" missions in there I expect. More excavations later...