Council leaders do deserve to be paid well

10:40am Friday 14th December 2007

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THERE was righteous indignation in the national newspapers this week over a plan to pay elected council leaders up to £10,000 in "golden goodbyes" when they are voted out of office.

These parachute payments were predictably condemned as a reward for failure and a waste of taxpayers' money But, and this might shock you, I don't have any big objection to the proposal put forward in a Government report.

I am probably the last person a Bucks councillor would turn to in their hour of need. I have always strongly advocated scrapping the county council along with the rest of the outdated and cumbersome local government system, and starting all over again.

However, that doesn't mean I am against the principle of local government. To make it work best for democracy, it needs to be streamlined and fully accountable to the electorate.

At present, there are too many councils too many overpaid jobs. You could save a fortune for the taxpayer by cutting out all the duplication.

But what would also save a packet of cash is ensuring that the very best and most able politicians stood for power.

It's all very well to hark back to the good old days when councillors were unpaid and gave up their time for the love of the community. In today's harsh economic world, that would rule out everyone bar the mega-rich or pensioners. Any thrusting young buck just wouldn't be able to afford to make an impact on the local political scene.

It's all very idealistic to expect them to carry out a full time job for nothing, but would you do it?

If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. But the only way to get the cost-effective public services the voters need around these parts, is to ensure we have some young lions at the helm.

And to do that, we need to pay them.