Hartlepool Borough Council agrees to freeze councillor allowances again
Councillor allowances are to be frozen once more after a recommendation to increase them and reintroduce special responsibility pay was rejected.
The latest Hartlepool Borough Council full meeting considered findings from the Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP).
The panel’s suggestion was that the basic allowance for Hartlepool councillors, which is £8,330 and has been unchanged since 2020-21, be increased by 3% to £8,580 from May 8, 2025.
The average basic allowance, which helps cover the time, travel, and costs of carrying out duties, in the Tees Valley is £8,999 and the Hartlepool figure is the second lowest in the whole North East.
Yet a proposal by Labour councillors that the increase be rejected and the allowance frozen was agreed at the full council meeting.
Speaking earlier in the year Labour’s Cllr Brenda Harrison, council leader, said she did not believe councillors should be increasing their own allowances “at a time when people across Hartlepool are struggling with the cost of living”.
The IRP also recommended that special responsibility allowances (SRAs), which were previously paid to a number of councillors who held positions with varying degrees of additional duties, were reintroduced.
These have been suspended since April 2024 in line with budget proposals from the then-leading Conservative coalition.
The IRP’s recommendation included bringing them back at a 50% reduced rate.
This would have meant the highest available SRA would have been for the council leader at £12,450 while the deputy would have been able to claim £6,225.
Committee chairs, apart from licensing at £2,499, would have been able to claim up to £4,165.
Councillors also agreed to reject this recommendation and to continue with the suspension of SRAs, meaning no councillor will receive more than the basic allowance.
Independent Cllr Sue Little had raised concerns about how if a councillor holds a committee chair position they often need to travel out of town for meetings and commitments.
Speaking at the meeting, she said: “What I feel we’re saying to the general public is you have to be well off to be a councillor, to go to all those places.”
Cllr Harrison responded by noting councillors still get a basic allowance “which in my mind covers stuff like that”.
The IRP is expected to next meet in 12 months to again review the level of allowances.