Newsquest Media Group Newspapers: Councillor defends £42,000 earnings

A TAXPAYERS' group has reacted with anger after it emerged that a Barnoldswick county, district and town councillor earned more than £42,000 from allowances last year.

As leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition on Lancashire County Council, David Whipp earns a bonus of more than £10,000 on top of the standard councillor's pay, making a total of £22,450.

Next year, that bonus will rise to more than £17,000.

Coun Whipp, who lives in Barnoldswick, also serves on the Lancashire Police Authority, earning him an extra £14,750 and, as Pendle Borough Council's executive member for resources, he rakes in £5,000 per year.

His income is more than two-and-a-half times that of the average councillor in Lancashire, but Coun Whipp said he represented good value for money and worked up to 100 hours a week for the community.

However, Blair Gibbs, a director of the campaign group Taxpayers Alliance, said: "It has become far too easy for some people to carve out quite a lucrative career in local government and all at council taxpayers' expense. Town halls are spending too much money and big allowances for elected members are part of the problem.

"Councils used to attract those who were committed to their community and would volunteer out of a sense of civic duty. Now there are far too many just accumulating as many posts as they can and raking in the expenses."

Former Barnoldswick Town Council chairman, Jenny Purcell, said the money for members should be more evenly spread between authorities.

"Town councillors do just as much and we barely get any help towards it," she said.

"When I was chairman I had a maximum expense limit of £100. Phone calls alone for council business cost more than that. But it seems to me there are a lot of double standards - £42,000 is pretty steep."

But Coun Whipp defended his payments, saying he worked an average 70-hour week. He said he sometimes spent more than 100 hours a week on council business, including almost every evening. He had also endured threatening phone calls and assaults, as well as being admitted to hospital through illness from stress as a result of the job.

Coun Whipp added: "I work hard to provide good value for the money I get from my public duties. I am a councillor to make a difference, not to make money.

"I must be doing something right. I've stood for election, and won, 21 times in the 27 years I've been a councillor.

"I confess that my public work is virtually my whole life. I'm proud as an ordinary guy who left school at 16 with no qualifications that I can operate at the top levels of local government in the county. And, of course, it's open to anyone to have a go and do the same - we live in a democracy."

Coun Whipp said he tended to shun job "perks" like cheap meals and hospitality and the only expenses he claimed were a fraction of his travelling and childcare costs.

"As a senior councillor I am responsible for the oversight of hundreds of millions of public money. I've more responsibilities and influence over local services than an MP and do it at a fraction of the cost. I've certainly made more savings for the public purse than I've cost it," said Coun Whipp.

"The standard allowances are fixed by an independent panel and if I wasn't doing the jobs someone else would, probably less effectively, so there wouldn't be any saving."

Labour councillor and the county council's cabinet member for sustainable development, Coun Tony Martin, often a critic of Coun Whipp, also defended the allowances.

He said: "The easiest answer in the world is to go back and say let's not pay councillors anything at all, but if you do that you return to a situation where no-one can afford to be a councillor except the landed gentry.

"Considering the amount of work involved in being a full-time councillor, and the fact that maximum job security is only four years, I think it's about right."