All councillors at Bolton Council are in receipt of a basic allowance. The basic allowance recognises the commitment to carry out the duties of a ward councillor.
In addition, those councillors who undertake formal positions in the Council, such as chairs of committees or members of the Executive, are also paid a special responsibility allowance. This recognises the additional and often significant time commitment for these duties as well as the extra responsibility of these positions.
The allowances paid are those recommended by an Independent Remuneration Panel. The basic members’ allowance will be increased annually in accordance with the agreed Council employee annual salary increase.
The total cost of allowances paid to the Council’s 60 councillors in 2011/2012 was £867,531.95. These amounts are the gross payments and are subject to income tax and national insurance.
In addition to the payment of allowances, expenses are paid for costs incurred such as travel and subsistence claims. The total expenses paid in 2011/2012 was £1817.49.
The different allowances are specified in the Council’s Members’ Allowances Scheme which is part of the Council Constitution. Use the link on the right to view information about the Council Constitution.
Viewing the expenses online
Under downloads, on the right of this page, you will find scanned copies of all the actual claims submitted by councillors from 2006/2007 onwards. In some cases these are handwritten and so parts of them may be difficult to read but we have tried to give you the information as we have it.
The only details we have removed are ones that could be used to steal a person’s identity or infringe their right to privacy. For example, we have covered up signatures, car registration numbers and credit card details. We have also removed the home addresses of those councillors whose addresses do not already appear on our website, but we have left the others in.
For each financial year, we have grouped the claim forms into four files, which are organised alphabetically by the name of the councillor. Within each file there are bookmarks to take you to the forms for a specific councillor. This will make it easier to download the files and find the information you want.
We have also attached a summary for each year showing the total amounts paid to each councillor.