Councillor expenses for the last year have been published two months after the end of the financial year.
Former Brighton and Hove City Council leader Phélim Mac Cafferty set the June deadline after complaints about long delays in recent years.
The new Labour leader, Councillor Bella Sankey, said that she understood the history behind the need to publish councillor expenses in a “timely manner”.
In the 2022-23 financial year, the 54 councillors received allowances and expenses totalling £912,640.37.
Each councillor received a basic allowance of £13,827.12, with more for those with special responsibilities such as the leader of the council, the deputy leaders, those chairing committees and other party leaders.
The most significant additional allowance was £34,567.92 for the leader of the council. Last year the former leader, Phélim Mac Cafferty, claimed £48,135.37 in allowances.
Twenty-nine councillors had money deducted to cover the cost of bus passes and parking permits totalling £4,910.83.
Three councillors, John Allcock, Jackie O’Quinn and Martin Osborne, claimed travel expenses totalling £85.60.
Former councillor Nick Childs, who has two children, was the only member to claim for childcare. His claim totalled £39.
Councillor Sankey said: “Now that we are properly in administration, and given the very transparent administration we seek to be, we will be ensuring that these are published promptly.
“We’ve made some quite radical adjustments to all the special responsibilities allowances through the creation of new committees.
“There are also issues to be worked out in terms of how special responsibilities allowances interact with councillors in receipt of benefits.”
During the previous administration there was outcry over former mayor Alex Phillips’s childcare expenses during her time in the role.
Ms Phillip’s submission to claim for prepaid childcare during the coronavirus lockdown in 2020, when she attended meetings remotely from her family’s holiday home in France, led to her repaying £490.
Council auditors found that her claims were not “deliberately deceptive” but they criticised poor practices.
Her husband, former councillor Tom Druitt also repaid £116 in childcare allowances for the couple’s two young children, which he had claimed legitimately for meetings that he had attended.
Councillors can make claims up to a maximum of £9 an hour for each child for the duration of meetings, plus one hour of travel time to and from meetings.
Delays and missing paperwork led to calls for councillor expenses to be published as close to the end of the financial year as possible.
Another reason I’ve stopped voting.
Delboy, not voting is the single most stupid thing that anyone can decide to do politically speaking. Vote to abstain, vote for RON, don’t do nothing.
Parking permits is an interesting one, since the council are effectively paying themselves. Why not simply register their vehicles as whitelisted with special dispensations?
Because it’s a choice rhe individual councillor makes to take a parking permit or bus pass as part of their allowances so it’s the councillor that is paying the council back from their allowance and the the parking account can be credited with the income and B&H Buses paid for the bus pass.
Just make it a salaried job and bin all expenses.
That would be more costly in the long run. Although many would be surprised on the amounts realistically, there’s a misconception that being a councillor is lucrative, it’s not.
But it attracts people who genuinely want to make a difference in their city.