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13
Oct
North Yorkshire councillors set for pay rise
North Yorkshire councillors look set to be awarded another pay rise in 2026/27.
The council’s Independent Remuneration Panel for Member Allowances has recommended increasing the amount each councillor receives by an inflation-linked 3.6%.
This would hike the 90 councillors’ annual allowance from £17,340 each in 2025/26 to £17,964 in 2026/27.
The special responsibility allowance paid to those councillors who take on additional duties and responsibilities, such as chairing committees, is also recommended to increase by 3.6%.
Cllr Carl Les
Conservative Carl Les would see his £40,447 leader’s allowance increased to £41,903 and his cabinet members’ allowances would be upped from £19,945 to £20,663.
If councillors vote to approve the recommendations, they will cost the council an additional £72,828 in total at a time when it needs to find between £33 million and £66 million in savings over the three-year period from 2026/27 to 2028/29.
A comparator document, produced by the panel, reveals North Yorkshire councillors would be the fourth highest paid of 19 local authorities assessed. Birmingham is the highest, at £19,952 per councillor and Bedford is the lowest, at £11,080.
'Increased workload'
Councillors are not formally paid but receive a basic allowance to reflect the time they give.
The four-person panel, chaired by Volvo Construction Equipment divisional director Philip Battle, said it considered factors including the increased workload on councillors since the transition to a unitary authority in 2023 reduced the number of councillors in North Yorkshire from 319 to 90, the need to attract and retain high-quality candidates from a variety of backgrounds, budgetary constraints and inflation.
If ratified, this would be the fourth consecutive pay increase for councillors. Their basic allowance increased from £15,500 in 2023/24 to £17,000 in 2024/25 to £17,340 in 2025/26.
The panel’s report says:
The reductions in council funding, and the associated work to balance the budget and change the way in which services are delivered, have increased the workload of councillors.
It adds there “are likely to be some difficult decisions ahead, particularly around funding of discretionary services”.
Cllr Les said:
The commitment made by members should be reasonably recompensed and I thank the members of the independent panel for carefully considering this very important issue.
As always, if approved by the council, it is then up to individual members to decide to take all, some or none of the allowances agreed.
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