An independent panel has agreed £5k should be paid to the chairman of a council committee that held only four meetings before it disbanded.
The vice-chairman is also to receive £1k for his role in this body.
Look, I don’t begrudge public servants earning money but we’re in the middle of a financial crisis.
Council workers are having wage cuts thrust upon them, services are being cut and the elderly are losing their homes to pay care costs – meanwhile CEC is being forced to fork out £1,250 a meeting to the ex-chairman of a defunct organisation.
Now, councillors can dress this up any way they like but taxpayers are not idiots.
Councillors are claiming they need to save £19m and this sort of internal largesse makes a mockery of the pretence of us ‘all being in it together’.
While the Tory government is urging us all to be part of the Big Society and give freely of our time in this time of financial restraint, councillors are being handed ex-gratia payments and inflated fees with abandon.
I doubt Richard Branson receives £416 an hour to attend meetings.
There again, it’s his money and people tend to be a lot more careful with their own cash.
This panel is awarding OUR money.
