What the mayor does in his own time is surely at his discretion
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THE ISSUES OF THE DAY WITH LETTERS
IN response to a number of letters regarding Mayor Rees having a second job, a number of considerations must be made to put the matter into perspective.
Firstly, what one does in their own spare time is at their personal discretion, unless there is a conflict of interest – and this applies to everyone.
Secondly, although the Mayor’s salary of £80,000 per annum appears to be very high to many of us, in comparison to other positions in similar size organations it is very average.
The Mayor’s salary is also similar to the salaries of backbench MPs (many of whom have other paid roles outside of the House of Commons) who have a much lesser scale and scope of responsibility compared to the role of the Mayor of Bristol who is the ‘first and lead manager’ for all aspects of the city council’s operations for the 470,000 citizens of Bristol.
Thirdly, which is surprising, is the Mayor’s salary is likely to be equivalent to senior management level at Bristol City Council and is considerably less than the salaries it pays to its executive management levels.
Fourthly, it is not the Mayor who has caused the closure of many businesses, both temporarily and permanently. It is the adverse effects, as we all know, of the Covid virus.
Further, the Government in its wisdom has also decided not to provide financial support to millions of self-employed people and others who have lost their livelihoods or had these greatly reduced.
This is in addition to previous governments’ cutbacks in their austerity programme in reducing funding to many local authorities including Bristol.
Now the Chancellor is imposing a council tax increase, presumably as part of the Government’s clawback strategy because of the enormous expenditure it has made to tackle Covid, and this being compounded by the loss of revenue during this period.
Finally and very importantly, the reported day a month the Mayor will spend in a paid consultancy role with the creative sector could be very beneficial to the city and its citizens.
The Mayor may use this opportunity and contact networks to bring employment and other much needed investment into the city, especially at this time. He should be supported in this
David Bonomi
Bristol