North Northamptonshire councillors to vote tonight on whether to give themselves a payrise

Members of North Northamptonshire Council will tonight (Thursday, January 26) decide how much to increase their allowances by.

Councillors have four options on the table – including not raising their allowances or giving themselves increases of between 6 per cent and 47 per cent.

Allowance rises are usually linked to pay awards given to council officers, which are pre-determined by the National Joint Council for Local Government Services (NJC).

This year, the NJC decided to give council workers a lump-sum rise of £1,925 across the board for full time employees from April 1, which means that there is no set percentage increase.

This makes it difficult for the payrise to be transposed across to councillors, who are currently paid a basic annual allowance of £14,000 plus further allowances for the other roles they undertake.

At tonight’s full council meeting they will be presented with four options.

Option one is to give each councillor a £1,925 on top of their basic allowance – a payrise of 9.72 per cent which would cost the council £150,150 from April.

Option two is to giveeach councillor £1,925 on top of their basic allowance and an extra £1,925 on top of their special responsibility allowance. Percentage increases would range between 6.66 per cent and 47.29 per cent, costing the council an extra £204,050.

Option three is to uplift all allowances (both basic and special responsibility) by 4.04 per cent – costing the council £56,343.

Option four would see members forgo their payrise for this year.

Less than a year ago, members voted to give themselves a 10 per cent payrise.

Tonight’s public meeting takes place at the Corby Cube at 6pm and is open to the public.