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Friday, 24 March 2006 |
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The "new" SPT (Strathclyde Partnership for Transport) today (Friday) approved increased allowances for the chair and vice-chairs. All 3 are Labour councillors (not surprisingly!). Alistair Watson goes from £18,398 to £22,000 while the vice chairs go from £12,327 to £16,500 a whopping 33% increase. (All these are on top of their basic councillor's allowance of around £8,000.) On a temporary basis larger increases had been given while the old and new SPTs were both operating, but these are now the permanent increases.
John Mason considers these increases a total abuse of power. He said, "Although SPT has taken on a few road powers, they have lost a lot of rail powers so there is an argument the work load has reduced. There are also now fewer sub-committees for the vice chairs to chair! The whole idea of such large increases when public sector staff are having their pensions cut will not be understood by many people."
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