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I keep hearing how mayors are going to be ever so much more expensive than the system we have at present. This doesn't have to be the case and, under the law, the allowances paid to the elected mayor (as well as councillors) are determined by full council - that's all 90 of us - in response to recommendations from an independent remuneration panel.
Currently Bradford's councillors are paid collectively around £1.8 million (the quick-witted will spot that's about twenty grand each) and the Leader got a few pennies shy of £50k in 2010/11. For the record, the 2012/13 budget has cut £100,000 from this allowances budget.
If we get an elected mayor - and I hope we do - I do not think that he or she will be paid much more that the current leader receives. I may be wrong here - the independent panel may decide that the mayor should be paid a great deal more and (stranger things have been known) council may agree. But even so, the financial impact of an elected mayor will be minimal.
Of course a really radical approach (and one I know Philip Davies supports) would be to reduce the number of councillors significantly. I'm equivocal about this (turkeys, christmas and all that jazz) but could the council operate effectively with an elected mayor plus 30 councillors, one for each of the current wards?
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1 comment:
Does this extra tier of troughers have anything to do with the EU Regions? Is our Parliament to be further sidelined, what of the local MP? Is there any point in all of this when the EU simply dictates what we can and cannot do?
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