COUNCILLORS should be paid based on their attendance levels at meetings, a committee in Caerphilly has heard, amid concerns some representatives “don’t know what’s going on”.
Plaid Cymru county councillor Judith Pritchard said “nobody seems to check” whether elected representatives “are value for money”.
“My fear now is that people stand for council for financial reasons and… don’t put in that work,” she told colleagues at a meeting of Caerphilly County Borough Council’s democratic services committee, on Monday November 25.
The committee was discussing new pay proposals for councillors in Wales, which will see representatives in Caerphilly receive a basic yearly salary of £19,771.
More senior positions – such as the council’s leader, cabinet members and some committee chairs – will receive more, according to the proposals by the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales (IRPW).
Cllr Pritchard told the committee “there should be some kind of attendance-related pay, as I had when I started in 1983”.
Cllr Andrew Whitcombe, chairing the meeting, told Cllr Pritchard he disagreed with the suggestion that some people became councillors for financial reasons.
Lisa Lane, Caerphilly Council’s head of democratic services, added that councillors’ pay “involves constituency work as well” as attending meetings.
She said those deciding pay levels for councillors “don’t want members’ salaries to act as a barrier to participation” in local government.
Councillors’ wages “encourage more diversity” in the make-up of local authorities, she added.
Cllr Colin Mann, also Plaid, said “whatever system we bring in, there will be some people who abuse it – if that’s the word”.
He added: “Whatever we do, there will be pros and cons.”
A Caerphilly Council report showed attendance levels for committees, since September 2023, ranged from 86.5% to 73% – the latter figure being for the joint scrutiny committee made up of non-cabinet representatives.
Reasons for absence are rarely disclosed in public at meetings, and can include both short-term and long-term illness.
The committee also heard councillors sometimes have to miss meetings because they clash with other obligations, such as attending meetings at schools where they serve as governors.
But Cllr Pritchard said she was “convinced there are members who don’t know what’s going on and don’t do much in the way of ward work”.
The committee’s discussion of the pay proposals will be sent back to the IRPW as part of an ongoing consultation process.
