Surrey county councillors have voted themselves above panel recommended increases including to £55,000 for leader David Hodge. The Panel has quit, readers’ letters have flooded in (see What the press says) and Surrey Advertiser editorial comment is headlined Is this what you voted for at elections ? We see the majority Party plundering savings with contempt, taking the money from the increase in council tax and adding to our national public debt. A majority of councillors (47 out of 81) have the Special Responsibility Allowance. Are they our champions or are they surrogate managers on the cheap ? They cannot be both. They come untrained from the Party stable, outnumber residents associations, and lord it over officers justifying high pay for managing big budgets. With politics having such a bad name recruiting candidates must be difficult but we shouldn’t be asked to elect barrel-scraped people only wanting to be a ”member” with financial support. We are perpetuating an unaccountable ruling ‘club’.” Do news reports about the Co-Op apply in Surrey ?: “a damning critique of the Co-op’s governance”, “the group would go bust unless major reforms were introduced, including replacing its current board of lay members with a smaller group of professionals” and “lack of boardroom expertise had been a major factor in disastrous decisions” with “our members understanding that the issue is one of competence |
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