Allowances and expenses
The Council is in the process of publishing the allowances and expenses for all councillors for the 2008-09 financial year.
The list for Durham County Council is published on the following web page:
http://www.durham.gov.uk/PDFApproved/CouncillorsAllowances0809.pdf
The details of my personal allowances and expenses for both the County Council and for my membership of the former Durham City Council is set out in a web page on this site - simply click on the link in the left column here.
For the sake of transparency I have included some comments on the detail of my expenses claims. If anyone wishes more detail I am happy to provide it.
One final comment. There have been some highly inaccurate comments in the letters column of the local press alleging that Councillor Carol Woods (Lib Dem PPC for Durham City) had claimed £30K last year in expenses/allowances while Deputy Leader of Durham City Council.
The actual figure was £13,871 being the combination of £5,571 in Basic Allowance and £8,300 in Special Responsibility Allowance for being Deputy Leader with nil claims for both travelling and subsistence expenses. [In normal parlance the word ‘allowance’ would be ’salary’, but council-speak is a mystery unto itself.]
I hope those peddling a gross error will now have the good grace to apologise.
If I were being charitable I would say that they had overheard a conversation and misheard ‘thirteen’ as ‘thirty’; nevertheless they had a duty to check the facts before sounding off shock-horror in the press!
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