Monday 13 May 2013

Cllr Ray Worley - Hedge End's Ever Present Councillor

Wednesday sees the AGM of Hedge End Town Council and the start of a new year of meetings. Congratulations are due to Cllr Ray Worley who has achieved 100% attendance at full council meetings for the second year. Joining him this year at all twelve meetings was Cllr Jane Welsh.

There are many reasons why an individual councillor might miss a small number of meetings - illness, family or work commitments, or commitments on other councils. Nearly half of the Lib Dems on Hedge End Town Council serve on neighbouring parish councils, the borough council or county council. But Cllr Welsh is a borough councillor as well and still managed to attend all town council meetings this year.

Town councillors are not paid an allowance, but if they were, Cllrs Worley and Welsh would be giving excellent value for money.  Overall, attendance at full council was 72% in the past year, a percentage brought down by three members who could only manage to attend fewer than 50% of the meetings.

Attendance Record at Full Council May 2012 to April 2013
 
Welsh, Jane100%12
Worley, Ray100%12
Bloom, Louise92%11
Carnell, Paul92%11
Sthankiya, Shankerlal92%11
Corben, Helen83%10
Day, Keith83%10
Effany, Richard83%10
Garton, Cynthia83%10
Hughes, Peter83%10
Houghton, Val75%9
Allingham, Margaret67%8
Baynes, Sheila67%8
Clarke, Daniel58%7
Kyrle, Rupert58%7
Pretty, Derek58%7
Tennent, Bruce58%7
Watson, June58%7
House, Keith42%5
Bloom, Caitlin33%4
Hughes, JennyAnn33%4

Picture credit: Hedge End Town Council

10 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Well done Cllrs Worley and Welsh - they can show some of their Borough counterparts a thing or two!
    Haven't run the rule on EBC Cllr attendance for a while on Eastleigh News - might be fun to do again ;)

    At tonight's AGM at EBC there were fair few missing including Cllr Bloom and our new MP Mike Thornton. Actually I have yet to see him at EBC since his elevation - that's two full council meetings and a P&P audit meeting so far.

    If I can make them, why can't he? He is getting paid for it!


    I know he said he would donate his member's allowance to Mayoral fund but surely Bishy residents deserve representation.

    (previous comment removed due to typo)

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    1. I did notice four of Hedge End's seven Lib Dems missed the budget meeting when the 1.9% increase for Hedge End was voted through.

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    2. Caitlin Bloom lives in Leicester - begs the question - why is she a Hedge End Councillor? Jenny and Peter Hughes have yound children and can't leave them unattended but with the allowances they are being paid (at least £18,000 between them as they are both Borough councillors) can easily afford babysitters!

      We need Councillors who will actually represent the electorate not just stand for kudos and money.

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  3. Oops. Not sure where Effingham came from. I've corrected it now. Sorry Richard.
    Town Council elections will be in 2015 I think.

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  4. Where did £18,000 come from? From reading borough allowances I certainly can't can't add them up to this amount. I know that one cllr has recently been unwell and is currently recovering from an operation, so please don't judge them.

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  5. What do you reckon the Borough allowance is then - £16,000 for two, about £8,000 each? Of course Councillors performances will be judged. They stood for an elected position. If they are on long term sick or miss more than six months of meetings, then they should stand down. It would happen in a work situation. The electorate needs to be represented by commited, dedicated, pro-active, community minded, local people not just 'make weights' creaming off at EBC. Remove Party politics from parish and town level and you will get a better Councillors.

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  6. Basic allowance 2012/2013 - £5,685 per year. This is information given by EBC on their web page.

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  7. Borough councillors are paid an allowance for their work as borough councillors. Town councillors don't get any allowance for their work as town councillors.

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  8. You say Cllr Worley has a 100% attendance record but I attend a lot of meetings there and have never actually heard him speak... No one could say that of Cllr Welsh though!

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