Members’ Allowances Survey 2006
The latest survey results from the Members' Allowances survey, conducted by Local Government and Analysis, draws together in one place information on member allowance schemes across England. The 2006 survey is the latest in a series of surveys which enable authorities to compare and review their own member allowance scheme against other authorities.
Key findings:
All 19,689 councillors in office in 2006 are entitled to a basic allowance and those councillors who hold offices of special responsibility, as set by their authority, are also entitled to a special responsibility allowance. Authorities also have the discretion to pay additional allowances such as dependant/carers allowance, travel allowance and subsistence allowance, and to allow councillors access to pension schemes.
Basic allowance:
- overall, councillors’ basic allowance for 2006 averaged £5,648 per annum, ranging from £3,991 in shire districts to £9,512 in metropolitan districts
Special responsibility allowance:
- the average leaders’ allowance was £16,356, ranging from £11,065 in shire districts to £31,784 in London boroughs
- cabinet/executive members received an average allowance of £9,243, ranging from as little as £5,994 in shire districts to £17,634 in London boroughs
- the overall average allowance for Chairs of Overview and Scrutiny was £5,686, ranging from as little as £3,721 in shire districts to £10,738 in London boroughs
- chairs of planning committees receive an average allowance of £5,172, ranging from £3,824 in shire districts to £9,978 in London boroughs, and Chairs of licensing committees receive an average allowance of £4,064, ranging from £3,034 in shire districts to £8,066 in London Boroughs
Other allowances:
- 84.0 per cent of authorities offered dependent carers’ allowance and 64.2 per cent offered childcare allowance. The overall average hourly rate was £6.84 and £5.96 respectively
- the majority of authorities also offered both travel (92.6 per cent) and subsistence allowance (87.9 per cent); however, fewer authorities offered a bike allowance (54.1 per cent)
- less than half of authorities (42.4 per cent) offered their councillors access to a pension scheme
Further information:
The following document contains futher analysis of the Members' Allowances survey, including analysis by local authority type and region. If you would like to compare the Member Allowances scheme of individual authorities this is available in the benchmarking file below.
Members Allowances Survey in England 2006 - Data Release (PDF, 5 pages, 84KB)
Member Allowances Survey 2006 - Summary analysis and benchmarking tool (XLS, 872KB)
Access the latest findings from the Councillor Census of 2006, the fourth study of local authority councillors in England since 1997. The study provides a unique insight into the attitudes and characteristics of 19,689 councillors across England.
National Census of Local Authority Councillors
Date: March 2007
Contact: stephen.richards@lga.gov.uk
Telephone: 020 7664 3256