Essex County Council - A Nice Little Earner for Some

16 November 2012

Essex County Council has released details of Lord Hanningfield's spending on council corporate credit cards during his time as council Leader, revealing spending of hundreds of thousands of pounds including on numerous foreign trips and hotel bills, some of which were never properly accounted for (1).

On BBC East on 15th November the current Council Leader Peter Martin said that the authority would be speaking to Lord Hanningfield about whether some of the money might be paid back. Lord Hanningfield was previously convicted and jailed for fiddling his Lords expenses but the police investigation into his council expenses has been dropped.

Cllr. James Abbott, Co-ordinator for Essex Green Party said

"These revelations and previously released information about spending on corporate credit cards by others in the authority confirms what has been widely believed for many years, namely that Lord Hanningfield and other senior figures within Essex County have at times enjoyed personal extravagance at taxpayer's expense. It is unclear what, if any, evidenced benefit there has been from Lord Hanningfield and others touring the world using public money.

Cllr. Peter Martin says that he will speak to Lord Hanningfield about his free spending when he was Leader.

But he should do far more than that. He should apologise for what has been going on under Conservative rule at County Hall. While local communities have struggled to keep vital local services such as school crossing patrols and have had to endlessly chase county highways to get potholes mended and other basic maintenance carried out, funds that could have helped those communities has been used instead to keep high living councillors in the manner to which they had become accustomed."

The Greens are also repeating their call for a review of Essex County Councillor allowances.

In the council year 2011/12, 15 county councillors each received over £30,000 in expenses and allowances and of those, 5 accrued more than £50,000 a year (2), which is about double the average full time wage for Essex.

But even that is not the total of what some Essex County Councillors get from the taxpayer because a number of them are also on other councils and boards, where they also get allowances.

The Green Group on Braintree District Council proposed that no councillor should get more than the average full time wage from all their public positions added together, but this was voted down by the ruling Conservatives on the authority.

Bob Wright, Braintree District Councillor said

"At a time of sharp cut backs in local authority funding, when we are being told that this is an age of austerity in order to reduce the public deficit and when services are consequently under threat, how can the county council justify these lavish payments ? There should be an urgent review."

Following the Police and Crime Commissioner elections, Peter Lynn of Colchester Green Party said

"Perhaps there is a role for the new Police and Crime Commissioner for Essex to open an investigation into the whole issue of the use of public money by councillors on corporate credit cards and other non-direct allowances at Essex County Council."

ENDS

Notes

(1)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-20337917

(2)

http://www.essex.gov.uk/Your-Council/Councillors/Allowances/Documents/Members_Expenses21112.pdf