Arrogance of KCC Tory fat cats

The arrogance of Kent’s Conservative county councillors in voting themselves a 15% pay rise, just weeks after the election, is beyond the pale.

This was 10 times more that recommended by the independent Member Remuneration panel. Ten times!

I didn’t notice any mention that this was coming in Cllr Michael Northey’s election literature. Perhaps if he has told us that one of the first things he would be doing once elected was vote to boost his own income in this way, the election result might have been different in Canterbury South.

When public sector workers are getting 1% pay increases the example set is quite disgusting. Its amazing just how easy it is to find money for some things, but not others. Mike Sole (Lib Dem candidate for Canterbury South in 2017 KCC Elections) Church Lane, Kingston has made several defences of this decision. They stand up to as little scrutiny as the decision itself.

He has said that there has been no increase in councillors’ allowance in the last eight years. If so, an increase of 1.5%, as the Independent Remuneration Panel’s report recommended, may well have been justifiable. But Conservative councillors voted for an increase of ten times what was recommended, making them the highest paid county councillors in the country.

Cllr Carter also suggested that this pay rise will help improve the diversity of our elected county councillors. This would be laughable if it wasn’t so transparently empty. If Conservative councillors wished to diversify the ranks of KCC, such a drive should have come before the May elections, not after. As it is, Cllr Carter may want to reflect that he leads a Tory group on KCC which is overwhelmingly male, uniformly white, and in the main over the age of 50.

At a time when the pay of public sector workers – teachers, nurses, firemen, people who provide vital services to our community – is capped at an increase of 1% a year, and wages are falling against inflation, councillors have shown that they are dramatically detached from the people they are meant to represent. Over the last eight years nurses’ pay has fallen by 14% in real terms. But nurses have no option to vote themselves a pay rise.

Will Conservative councillors now be lobbying the government to lift the public sector pay cap, and give public sector workers as generous as pay rise as you have given themselves? Jon Beer Vice-chairman Herne Bay Labour Party