Just catching up and boy does Mary know how to use the system or what. What happens every Thursday in every other Councillors life, nothing regular but every Thursday Mary has some council work to do, yeah right. Is it not just a coincidence that one day a week for her as a teacher can amount to 208 hours a year. So every Thursday off from school even if you do not actually need it, will anyone ask her to justify it, not bloody likely. Just like MP's and some MSP's not illegal but some could question the morals of people using the system like this.

Mail in today

As if they did not know that in the first place, yet another council trying it on and hoping that the applicant will just go away and forget about it. If they work in the information department and don't know about the legislation they need re training but I suspect that they do know and are just at it.

Now that we have all of our Freedom of Information Requests in we are now in a position to highlight the findings.

The history

All councillors receive approximately £16,500 a year, with Convenors (who can only come from the administration) receiving approximately £2000 over the basic as does the Provost and his Deputy.

The Leader commands a basic allowance of approximately £26,500

Each and every elected member can claim expenses and these include travel, telephone etc.

Additionally there are a few who are appointed to outside bodies and are paid for those duties.

Leader Fletcher receives an additional £7,800 for being attached to the Scottish Futures Trust.

Cllr Lafferty receives an additional £12,501 for being appointed to the NHS board.

Cllr Lafferty was also appointed vice convener of North Strathclyde Community Justice Authority (NSCJA) in June 2012 and he has attended 3 meetings of NSCJA held during 2012-13. His total renumeration during that year was £3,033.83

Which equates to £1,011.27 per meeting.

Councillor O'Kane was appointed vice convener of Renfrewshire Valuation Joint Board in June 2012 and he has attended 4 meetings held during 2012-13. His total renumeration during that year was £3,045.

Which equates to £761.25 per meeting.

Where is this level playing field, I'm going to submit a planning application for some luxury flats.

In addition to the above there is also a hidden cost.

Elected members who have full time 'day jobs' are entitled to paid leave in order to undertake council duties.

We have a number who appear to use this practice wisely and some who may appear to do otherwise.

From the FOI information we have been in a position to establish that we have one member who has taken 37 days off in one year, the maximum allowed and the majority would all appear to be on Thursdays and we have been unable to work out why Thursdays are important to the Cllr.

In addition to this elected member being provided with paid leave the employer would appear at public expense to employ a stand in during this leave of absence.

If we move on we have an elected member who has taken 21 days leave and not charged his employers or the public for this leave, (Cllr Hay) which has meant that this elected member has in our estimation lost approximately £3000 and that does not include his lost leave entitlement all for the good of the public.

Then we have a few elected members who are self employed and when they give up their time, they do not receive any compensation.

Elected members are invited to a variety of meetings, Parent Council, Community Council, Social Groups etc, etc which are all over and above of their role in attending council meetings.

Should we not be in a position to see which of those meetings each elected member actually attends, and which ones a few only attend due to a buffet being part of the proceedings.

Why are some elected members financially disadvantaged and attend as many public meetings as they can, whilst others are apparently rewarded for their lack of attendance and interaction with the public.

Are photo shoots really the only thing that counts in the ERC popularity stakes, or should we go back to the days when an elected member was rewarded for their work to support the community, and in our opinion only a few are displaying to date.