Author: Simon Perry
Cllr Susan Scoccia Council Allowance Set To Triple (Updated)
6:30 pm Wednesday, 13th January, 2010, Isle of Wight
ShortURL: http://wig.ht/27gh
Read More- Island-wide, Isle of Wight Council, News, Opinion Piece, Ventnor
There’s a full council meeting at the Isle of Wight Council tonight and for once we’re not covering it live.
One of the subjects under discussion is the Special Responsibility Allowances (SRA) that are paid to county councillors if they chair some of the committees. The SRA is paid on top of the Basic Allowance of £7,903 that all councillors receive.
If the vote goes in favour of the proposal Ventnor’s own fragrant member for the Ventnor West, Cllr Susan Scoccia, will be a few quid better off. Bundles of it in fact.
She is currently the chair of the Licensing and General Purposes Committee. It’s proposed that her yearly allowance rocket from £1,977 per year to £6,322. An eye-watering multiple of over 316%!
Not only that, but the proposal is that it’s back dated to 17 June 2009, bringing in around another £3,000.
Nice work if you can get it.
Will it go through?
Pound to a penny that it does.
To date we can only recall only one full council vote where _any_ of the Conservative councillors didn’t vote together as a single block.
Update 12:00 14.Jan: We hear that the Conservatives did vote as a single block.
With that, I guess it’s triples all round at the bar – with Susan picking up the tab.
You deserve what you vote for.
Offensive comment?
I understand she won the vote only by about 7 votes. If she’d got 8 less votes, the independent candidate,would have taken the position.
Offensive comment?
Islanders have a special responsibility to see that the number of conservative councillors is reduced at the next round of elections to make sure the curse of block-voting is well and truly vanquished.
This is a disgusting increase. I trust the public will be able to obtain information detailing exactly what this money gets spent on?
Offensive comment?
just one of those comments…but why is it you see all the elected on the run up to voting..then low an behold…someone elected and they all vanish…never to be seen again until voting time……………
Offensive comment?
I’d rather see and hear much less about our elected representative….D. Pugh
Offensive comment?
Did Conservative Future feel the same way?
Offensive comment?
i took a look at Susan Scoccia’s website and she serves on 4 committees so is that four timed the payment? As a councillor she attends a lot of meetings which she has put updted her site with but has no news for her constutuents since August and has no details of her surgeries, quite interesting, a lot of meetings but no news and if constituents do not know how to access her at her surgeries whose view is she representing?
Offensive comment?
Sorry people, but even if she gets that much it’s still not a living wage and these days being Chairman of a committee or even a hardworking Councillor seems to be a full time job. The last Liberal council had lots of full timers, this one is no different. You get what you pay for. Hopefully.
Offensive comment?
Sorry! How much do islanders Get
UNEMPLOYED
> JSA (no other income) Around £60 per week
EMPLOYED SELF EMPLOYED
> SEC Self employment credit – £50 a week for 16 weeks to get you up and running
> WTC – Working tax credit – around £53 a week tops if on your on a low income
Does her wages not pay enough without additional bonuses?.
Maybe that money should go BACK to people living on the Island who really need it rather than paying for un-needed french linins.
Offensive comment?
Yes give it back to the people of the island who really need it.
Offensive comment?
I am not condoning increases of this magnitude, but let’s get the mathematics right. The headline says that it’s a “£316% increase”. Now the INCREASE is actually £4345, which is 220% of the original £1977.
After all, if something used to cost £200 and now costs £300, that is a 50% increase, not 150%.
What you can say is that the whole allowance is now 3.20 times what it was before, or “the allowance has more than tripled”, if you want to be more coloquial.
Offensive comment?
Thanks for the guidance on this.
I think it’s an English failure on my part – I didn’t express it clearly enough.
Have changed the headline to “Cllr Susan Scoccia Council Allowance Set To Triple” and tweaked one word of the text. Thank again.
** For those who are interested, it did get passed by the Council last night **
Offensive comment?
However you look at it. It’s a hefty hike in these troubled times. Wouldn’t everybody like to be in a position to review their own pay?
Offensive comment?
And there I was thinking that we were in a period of cuts in government spending. Maybe ‘we’ are, and ‘they’ are not ?
It’s disgusting.
Offensive comment?
Add on all the extras. Computer – Free phone and calls and travel allowances etceteras.
Oh to be on the Council; especially these husband and wife/partner councillors. Some of them run their own businesses at the same time, Busy bees!
I wonder who runs the home! Far too many couples are on the gravy train (albeit, mini-trains).
Just like in national Government, I do not feel it acceptable for husbands/wife’s/partners to be employed in politics working together.
Time for change – Long overdue.
Offensive comment?
If you don’t pay them you’ll only get retirees and those who can afford to give up work. Is that really what you want? None of our elected representatives get paid national rates for comparable jobs. You can’t compare it to dole money!
I don’t like to be ageist, but a council made up of 80 plus year olds is unlikely to be on the ball. We have serious problems here on the island, we need some half decent brains to solve these problems.
Offensive comment?
Well we accept these oldies in the House of Lords
and some of our MPs are well past their sell by dates, and most are on the fiddle…, but then you get a good tune on an old fiddle:-)
How old was old Winston? Food for thought.
Most of these councillors do the job for the status and to booster their egos; and the majority are not without a bob or two.
We are over governed and all we need is one Councillor for each ward and scrap the Parish and Town Councils; they have no clout and are just a waste.
Offensive comment?
Would those be the brains who have so far helped cost us nearly 1.5M thanks to the Undercliff scandal, and 1M+ on not developing Ryde seafront at all (despite there being a huge government grant available to the island had they got their act together?)
Half decent brains? I’m pretty sure most of them have been more than halved…
Offensive comment?
Shobba’s comments made me smile. When I attended a cabinet meeting last year when they talked about concessionary bus fares, every Member of the Cabinet except Cllr Pugh declared an interest because they either already had a bus pass or they would have by the time the new concessions came in!
Offensive comment?
”You can’t compare it to dole money!”
Course you can nobba! The govenment has worked out how much each individual in our country needs to live on and survive.
They say 60 pound is enough for all unemployed
For me I get working tax credits of 51 pounds per week. add that to my wages and i get about 500 pound per month to keep a roof over my head and feed, cloth and provide for my daughter and myself
Funny how councillors get around 400 pound per month just in food allowence paid for by us, not including the extra perks they got. THEN ON TOP OF THAT GET A SALERY! WTF!
At lease robbin hood stole from the rich to help the poor unlike our Isle of Wight Council.
Offensive comment?
Underworked and overpaid are the two words that spring to mind. If the named individual(s) who will benefit from this unrealistic increase had any pride or dignity they would not accept such a sum – considering they dont seem to be able to evidence what they do during their working hours. It may even go in their favour if the public start to believe they do their work out of a genuine regard for the community.
Offensive comment?
I do not think individuals should be parish/town councillors and county councillors. When it comes to important issues, school closures for instance, parish councillors who are also county councillors declare an interest/conflict of interest and do not vote. Therefore they do not support the parish who has voted them in. I say ‘no’ to the holding of two elected posts by one individual.
Offensive comment?