Exeter councillors' expenses to go online

 A COUNCIL is to reveal all of its councillors’ expenses online — claiming it has nothing to hide.

Following the fallout about MPs’ expenses, Exeter City Council said it wanted to show how “transparent” its system is.

In a move likely to be welcomed by taxpayers, the authority will soon publish all expenses claims by city councillors on its website.

It has not yet revealed the date for their publication.

Council bosses claim that allowances and expenses for councillors account for 0.3 per cent of the authority’s budget.

The leader of Exeter City Council, Adrian Fullam, said the authority wanted to be seen to be open.

He said: “People have a right to know what public money is being spent on, particularly in the light of recent events concerning MPs’ expenses.

“That is why we will soon have all councillors’ expenses available for the public to view on our website.

“We want to be transparent about expenses — after all we have nothing to hide.”

The council said that since April 1, only one expense claim has been received by the authority — a £23 claim for mileage from Councillor Fullam, for attending the Devon Strategic Partnership meeting in Bideford on April 16.

Last year the 40-member city council reimbursed councillors a total of £293.20 in expenses.

Cllr Fullam said the city council had saved £6,190 by freezing allowances paid to its councillors this financial year, and that these details were also available on the website.

He added that only two councillors had taken up the option of joining the council’s pension scheme, and the annual cost of this to the council was £3,178.56.

In a joint statement, all four political group leaders — Cllr Fullam, Cllr Yolonda Henson, leader of the Conservative group, Cllr Pete Edwards, leader of the Labour group, and Cllr Joan Morrish, leader of the Liberal group — said: “Nobody makes us stand as councillors, it is a choice we make, but many of us also have a ‘day job’ and may have to reduce the number of working hours to serve the people that have elected us. In a fair and democratic society it is important that we encourage people from all walks of life into public service and to do that you need to ensure that councillors are given a basic allowance to carry out their everyday duties and the opportunity to make up for any lost earnings.”