Councillors’ expenses published by Medway Council

Medway Council have today published online councillors’ expenses for 2009/2010, after a query was raised by Alan W Collins as to why they had not yet been published.

55 records are contained within the document, although there were 56 members in total who were eligible?to claim some, or all, of the Members’ Allowances.

Cllr Barry Kemp, who served as Deputy Mayor, is the only member whose expenses details are missing.

Disgraced former councillor Dennis McFarlane received the lowest, with just ?2,570.20 of the ?9,025.20 basic allowance all members are entitled to, whilst his successor Councillor Tashi Bhutia received ?5,214.56. Neither received special responsibility allowances nor claimed for travel.

The highest recipient was Cllr Rodney Chambers, who as leader of the council received ?26,507.52, which, with other allowances taken into account, gave him ?35,776.82.

In total, members were paid ?749,882.34 (not including Cllr Kemp) in allowances.

The full expenses can be found here.

Update 10/06/2010 @ 11:20

After further representations by Alan W Collins, Medway Council updated its published expenses at 11am today to include Cllr Kemp’s expenses.

The final total paid to members is now ?760,044.12, an average of ?13,818.98 (taxed) per councillor.

Alan W Collins will, however, continue to investigate expenses for all members – past and present…