Councillors’ wages frozen for third year

Wages for councillors are to be frozen for the third year in a row, the Scottish Government has announced.

Local government minister Derek Mackay made the decision after “carefully” considering the findings of a special committee which had called for the basic salary for Scotland’s councillors to increase by 16.5%

However, Mr Mackay said that “against a background of unprecedented cuts to Scotland’s budget by the UK Government and the need for continuing pay restraint across the public sector” he had decided not to implement the increase.

The Scottish Local Authorities Remuneration Committee (SLARC) had suggested the basic salary councillors receive be increased from its current level of £16,234 to £18,916.

It also suggested the leaders of Glasgow and Edinburgh councils should receive £63,000 a year, with leaders of smaller authorities earning at least £44,000.

In its report, published in March, SLARC said senior councillors were working harder and had more responsibilities.

Larger multi-member wards were introduced in Scotland in 2007 - leading to “significant changes” in the amount of work councillors needed to do, the report found.

The Scottish Government has already brought in legislation to ban the payment of councillors by arms-length organisations - which have been set up by some authorities to run some services - after this was recommended by SLARC.

Mr Mackay today said he had “decided not to implement any further recommendations of the 2010 review report at this time”.

He added: “We have always sought to ensure that pay policy is fair and affordable across the areas of the public sector that we have responsibility for, which includes councillors’ pay.

“Any increase in pay would put additional pressure on local authority budgets and I have decided that councillors’ pay will remain frozen in 2012-13.”

Mr Mackay said he would look again at the issue next year, ahead of 2013-14, to “see what is affordable, sustainable and appropriate at that time”.