I am grateful to an anonymous e-mail, which was forwarded onto this site, for providing this information.Throughout the present dispute over chairmanships on the Council one of the constant refrains of the opposition is that the present Administration is only in it for the money. That is far from the truth. Still it is a bit rich given the history of special responsibility allowances in Swansea.
In considering this we need to remember that Councillors' Allowances are set by the Government. In Swansea the Special Responsibility Allowances were set locally in accordance with that guidance, just like every other Council.
In the last full financial year of Swansea's ruling Labour regime, from 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2003, before they lost control - the total spent on Special Responsibility Allowancess was £460,356.34 per. Two years on, for the second full financial year of the Swansea Administration between 1 April 2005 and 31 March 2006, the total claimed in Special Responsibility Allowances was £375,282.25 per annum. A significant drop of nearly 20%, despite claims by Ray 'Ranter' Welsby that we have increased them by the same proportion.
The reason for this is that the Swansea Administration agreed to pay one fifth of their allowances into the street cleansing budget right from the start. The question now is will the Tory, Plaid Cymru, Labour Coalition do the same, or will the cost to taxpayers rocket back up to the previous figure?
