A LABOUR councillor claims he has been pressured into using his member’s budget to pay for things the council should provide itself.
At a meeting of Cheshire West and Chester Council’s executive last week, Cllr Justin Madders, Ellesmere Port Town, expressed concern about how the fund operated.
He said: “We need transparency – not just for individual councillors so the public can see what their money is spent on, but transparency from the council about how this money is to be used.
“Too often councillors are being pressurised into spending their budget on things that the council should be paying for anyway.
“For example, I’ve been asked to fund clearing graffiti and putting up street lights. These are important matters but this funding should be coming directly from council coffers.
“Councillors can do some great stuff for the community with our budgets but we cannot paper over the cracks in the service.”
Members of the Labour group have now called on the council to publish details of how individual councillors spend their budgets – to expose purchases and shed more light on occasions when councillors help the council pay for its services.
Labour councillor Ben Powell (St Paul’s ward) said: “Spending by members has enabled resources to be targeted according to local needs and priorities.
“However, I am worried by some items on the list, for example £2,500 was spent on 500 royal wedding commemorative mugs, which were distributed for free to residents in one small area just before the local election.
“I would like the council to go one step further and publish, in an accessible format, details about which councillor made each grant. Currently, the details published only identify the ward from which the grant originated.”
Cheshire West and Chester Council spokesman Laura Johnson said: “We do keep individual members’ information and what they spend their budgets on which is available upon request to anybody who might like to read it.
“There are two reasons why we publish ward by ward. The figures relate to the last two years, so this crosses the election period which means some of the councillors are no longer in their post.
“It’s easier to see how much has been spent in a ward.
“And many projects don’t just involve one member.
“It is down to the individual member what they spend their money on.
“How a member chooses to spend their member’s budget grant is completely down to them. There are many good examples of councillors using part of their allowance alongside mainstream council funding to meet local community objectives.”
