There's also a well known maxim, that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!
The problem with the new payment levels is that you are caught between two stools that I doubt will be enough to attract a higher calibre of person by itself. We'll end up simply paying more to the monkeys! It is still a form of amateur club committee set up. The downside of Anthony Berend's suggestion is that it will then only attract the wealthy, more likely to be friends of developers and the business world whilst less concerned with green spaces and public welfare. Public service is very noble but usually it has a price and if you pay little, the knock on effect is either sub standard service or the temptation for corruption and fraud to make up the difference. We need to be realistic about this.
Juries are an example where the true society balance mix is distorted to a much higher ratio of non working people, due to the low expenses paid. Many working people will use any excuse to wriggle out of it. The government are looking to tighten up on that though I haven't noted an increase in their payments and you then risk another knock on effect - many who will rush to a verdict with more concern about time, than careful thought and desire for true justice. (I have been on jury service).
Look at the new arrangement for the referees in the football premier league for this season. They have become professional on a good salary (I think it's around £60,000), replacing the few hundred pounds match fee. They are also much more accountable for their actions with instant punishments for poor performance (e.g. demoted to Nationwide league for a number of games and can only return when perfomance has improved). They also receive less income.
I think there could be something in this system for local government. Along the lines of less councillors elected, paid more and devoting themselves full time to their allocated roles. Like you have a police monitoring group, we could have a council monitoring group that are nothing to do with party politics (or the 'establishment') and each member is voted for at a public meeting.
Don't forget that they only receive the salary whilst serving, which means they've been working elsewhere 'in the real world' previously and will have to return to this when no longer an elected member. If there's a reservation of becoming too cosy with this, you could write into the new constitution a maximum term that anyone could serve as a councillor (e.g. 8 or 12 years).
As Cllr Mann and others have pointed out, it isn't only Richmond with the problems or is the only 'Rotten Borough' featured in Private Eye. Time to think 'out of the box' for solving the longer term issues, or frustrations will continue at 'more of the same, business as usual'. |
