City of York councillors work hard on our behalf and I am in favour of them receiving allowances.

But I don't want those allowances to be thought of as salaries, inflation-linked and pensionable (Councillors' 11 per cent pay rise, The Press, January 18).

Their allowances are correctly described as such; an allowance is not a salary, but it does acknowledge the time and effort expended by councillors, over and above their normal work, on our behalf.

Councillors may, with my approval, seek a "baby-sitting" allowance, but to ask for the larger package costing £94,000 is a step too far in this cash-strapped year.

Indeed, for us to read that the council leaders propose such a increase only days after a survey document was widely circulated asking taxpayers to vote on areas where expenditure should be increased or decreased smacks of political chicanery. That survey document contained no mention of the proposal to pay councillors £94,000 more.

For Coun Gillies (who is prepared to accept the increase) to suggest, without providing any evidence, that the increase was necessary "to attract more people to stand as councillors" was misleading.

His real fear should be that increased allowances would persuade people to become councillors for the wrong reasons.

Had the council leaders been bold enough to include this proposal to increase councillors allowances in the survey document they could have learned whether we ranked it above, for instance, increasing fees to elderly residential and nursing homes, or ending some social services to the elderly and disabled, to closing a drop-in centre for those with mental health needs, to closing three young people's performing arts centres or reducing children's social workers etc.

It is my opinion that the councillors would be wise to forego any increase in allowances this year and to vote against them ever being pensionable.

In this they would be widely supported.

John L Craven, Main Street, Nether Poppleton, York.


* Firstly let me applaud the councillors who have declined the 11 per cent pay increase, but yet again it all comes down to money. The £1 million savings task could have been made easier if all councillors took a pay freeze.

The figure quoted for the cost of their rise was £94,000; there's ten per cent of the budget gap. They also, again as The Press reports, mostly have other jobs, and to think they receive £6,300 per year as a councillor, or £125 per week, are they worth it? We have people in York living in poverty and having to try to make ends meet.

I, for one, think they do not deserve this kind of money for seemingly doing very little. They need to make profits and savings, and then, and only then, should they be paid.

So, City of York Council, let's see a radical approach how you run the city, and come up with savings that are realistic.

Not only will you get me on your side, but I am sure other York residents would like to see a council well run and profitable.

Instead of taking easy options, like large increases in council tax, give the residents something back. I would like to open The Press one day and read something the council have done that everyone wants.

Will this happen? I will leave it to the city council.

Gary Mitchell, The Groves, York.


* So Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers' Alliance believes that a babysitting allowance for councillors is a perk.

I wonder if he could explain to me how a single parent with children could ever manage to be elected to serve on the council?

Or does Mr Elliott believe that they should pay for the child care they need to attend evening meetings from their own pockets?

The truth is that fewer and fewer people are willing to put in the enormous time and effort it now requires to serve as councillors. As that pool dries up, true representative democracy suffers, as councils come to be dominated by those who can afford it.

As for Mr Elliott, his organisation has the cheek to claim to represent all taxpayers when it has fewer than 5,000 members - (membership is available by clicking a button on their website, by the way), considerably fewer than the number who elect York city's councillors.

Patrick Kelly, Scarcroft Hill, York.