Sunderland councillors have voted unanimously against taking a pay rise while city residents are “suffering with financial difficulties.”
Every financial year, Sunderland City Council is required to renew its members’ allowances scheme and to consider the recommendations of an independent panel.
The latest proposals from Sunderland’s ‘Independent Remuneration Panel’ (IRP) suggested a two per cent increase for 2022/23, in line with assumptions in budget planning for staff pay awards.
This would have seen annual basic allowance, which is available to all city councillors, increase from £8,369 to £8,536.
Since the proposals were made public, Sunderland City Council’s political groups said they would reject the proposed rise.
At a meeting of the full council on Wednesday at City Hall, councillors voted overwhelmingly to reject the pay increase.
Council leader Graeme Miller said the Labour Group would not accept a rise in basic allowances when city residents were facing financial hardship.
“It was absolutely clear to the Labour Group that we could not be taking even a twp per cent rise when we were still putting council taxes up because of the massive underfunding of budgets by a Conservative government which just continues year on year with austerity politics,” Cllr Miller explained.
“That was why we said no to it.
"The independent panel have done their job and last year proposed that we uplift to [about] £9,000 because that was the median level of a basic allowance in the North East and with local authorities of our size.
“Sunderland council’s basic allowance by comparison is very low and we said no to it then because people were suffering even further with financial difficulties a year ago – and they’re still suffering with financial difficulties this year.
“That’s going to get worse because of a National Insurance rise unless the Tory party bottles it, having listened to Labour, and withdraws it before we get to April and they actually do something about VAT on fuel bills which would help families.
“They [should] look at the freeze on Universal Credit which is actually a real cut in income for families, at least 40 per cent of whom are working.
“So with that background it was just not possible to take even a two per cent rise.”
While voting against the recommendations for a two per cent rise in basic allowance, some opposition councillors asked for city leaders to go further.
Wearside Liberal Democrats have previously called for cuts to special responsibility allowances (SRAs), which can be claimed in addition to basic allowances by those in roles including the council leader, deputy leader, cabinet members, opposition group leaders and chairs of committees.
At this week’s full council, councillor Niall Hodson, leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, called for broadband and home telephone allowances for councillors to be removed from the expenses package in future.
Cllr Hodson added that councillors could move towards using “mobiles only” which provide a dedicated phone line and access to the internet.
Councillor Antony Mullen, leader of the council’s Conservative Group, also confirmed his group would continue to push for cuts to SRAs and called for clarity on the creation of a new “green” cabinet portfolio.
The opposition leader added that all future submissions to the IRP should name the contributer to provide “full transparency”.
Cllr Miller, responding, said that a new cabinet position for the green agenda area was “highly likely to happen” in future because of the council’s drive to become a carbon neutral local authority by 2030.
The council leader added that councillors needed all the tools available to serve residents and that home broadband and home telephones were “still a necessary facet of being a councillor and a good community champion”.
The IRP considers views of all political groups on the council, while also having regard to the members’ allowances schemes of other councils in the region.
Despite independent recommendations to increase Sunderland City Council’s basic allowance in the past, basic allowance has remained at the same level since 2012.
