Rebel 10 Councillors demand reversal of huge allowance increases for Wiltshire Council’s Tory leaders

Cross-party support is being given to the motion tabled by independent Wiltshire councillors to reverse the decision to boost the personal allowances paid to the council’s Tory leader Jane Scott and her Cabinet members by up to 37 per cent.

The motion, part of the campaign led by Councillors Jeff Osborn and Terry Chivers, which is due for discussion at an extraordinary meeting of the council on February 4, now has backing of a total of 10 councillors.

It declares simply: “That this council agree to rescind the decision on members’ allowances made by council on 12th November 2013”.

The meeting, originally set to take place on Christmas Eve, now has the support of both Labour and Liberal-Democrat members of the unitary authority, which has made more than 200 of its staff redundant as part of its austerity measures.

Those who have now signed a requisition which is required to call the meeting, apart from councillors Osborn and Chivers, also include their independent colleagues Helen Osborn and Ernie Clark.

Ricky Rogers, leader of the council’s Labour group, and Labour councillors John Walsh and Ian Tomes have also signed the requisition plus Lib-Dem councillors Trevor Carbin, Ian West and Brian Dalton.

“This extraordinary meeting moves us on from the fiasco of the previously proposed Christmas Eve date set by the chairman of Wiltshire Council, which we saw as a deliberate trap, designed to alienate council staff for whom December 24 was an official holiday,” Councillor Osborn told Marlborough News Online.

“Now we can have a full and frank debate and hopefully wipe the slate clean — with no personal allowance increases for at least the next year.  The tide of public anger over the massive increases was so immense that something had to be done to restore local faith in the political process.  

“Without doubt this ‘grabbing’ behaviour had brought the standing of county politics in Wiltshire to an historical low.  Public contempt in the county is now bordering on the dangerous.

“I am at a loss as to why the Conservatives behaved as they did.  Perhaps it was just arrogance or political ineptness.  Maybe the debate will come up with deeper reasons.  

“However, the resultant vote will give the Conservatives a crucial second chance to publicly redeem themselves and forgo the massive increases.  For the sake of politics in the county I hope that they rise to the occasion.”

And he added: “Jane Scott, the council’s leader, has said that our notice of motion is the cause of a loss of staff morale at County Hall.  This is utter nonsense.  

“Talking to various staff, I am told that a rolling series of redundancies — with more to come – extra work loads and revealed inequalities in income levels, are the real causes of disquiet.  

“In their eyes our notice of notion is most welcome.  The only way to deal with staff morale is to institute an independent survey and not rely on out of date council statistics.”