An independent panel has recommended that Cornwall councillors should see their allowances raised to more than £17,000 a year.

Under the proposals the 87 councillors would get an increase of just over 4% backdated to April 2022 and then another 4% for the coming year.

Councillors currently receive a basic allowance of £15,130.75 but the council’s independent remuneration panel has recommended that this should rise to £17,681.79 from May 2023. A report on the issue is set to go before an extraordinary meeting of full council next week when councillors will make a final decision.

When the council last considered its allowances scheme in 2021 it rejected the recommendations of the independent panel and instead continued with the current rates. There has been no uplift in allowances since 2017.

Whilst all 87 councillors can claim the basic allowance those councillors with additional roles – such as the leader, Cabinet members and chairs of committees – can claim special responsibility allowances (SRAs). These would also increase under the proposals from the independent panel.Under the changes the leader would be able to claim an extra £32,711.31 and the deputy leader £24,533.48.

Cabinet members and the Chairman of the council would get an SRA of £22,897.92.

All the allowances include a 25% reduction which is set to recognise that being a councillor is a public service role and that there should be a voluntary element to the roles.

Kirsty Hickson, chair of the independent remuneration panel said in the foreword to her report: “There were a number of consistent themes reported throughout the evidence gathering process, these were most notably: the impact of the cost of living crisis on members’ abilities to ‘make ends meet’ and potentially posing a barrier to individuals standing for election; an increase in the work for members since the reduction in numbers to 87 from 123 in 2021, particularly as there had been no changes to the council’s governance structure; a challenge to the application of a public service discount; and that whilst there have been benefits brought by new ways of working, this has also led to some increase in intensity of virtual meetings, sometimes running ‘back-to-back’.”

As part of the process the remuneration panel invited councillors to respond to a survey about allowances and to make comments about the system. This looked at the work that councillors do as well as how much they receive in allowances.

The largest number of members said that they work between 35 and 40 hours a week on their basic council business, so not covering any special responsibilities that they might have. The majority of councillors felt that the current allowance of £15,130.75 was “not reasonable”.

When asked about the 25% discount placed on councillors’ allowances some members suggested that it should be reduced to 10 to 20%. One councillor said they felt “the whole idea of volunteering a discount on our allowance is misjudged”.

On the basic allowance one councillor responded: “The allowance should be higher, to fairly support those of us who work so hard and to make it possible for a more diverse range of people to be councillors.”

Some members suggested that the basic allowance should be set somewhere between £18,000 and £23,000.

The report from the independent remuneration panel will be considered by full council when it meets on Tuesday (January 31) at New County Hall in Truro. Councillors will then vote on whether to accept the recommendations.

• What do you think? Write to us: [email protected] or [email protected]