COUNCILLORS starting work this week with the new Dorset Council will get a basic allowance of £13,000 a year.

This compared to the previous £10,600 for county councillors and an average of £5,000 a year for the old district and borough councillors.

But for many of the new councillors the role will be a full time position and a reoport suggests that they are likely to be working harder than those on the six councils which have been replaced by the new Dorset Council.

Across the area there has been a cut from more than 170 councillors to the current 82, which should produce a saving of £400,000 a year in allowances and expenses. The previous six councils had an annual £1.8 million budget for councillors.

On average each new councillor will now represent 3,600 electors – double the average for a previous district/borough council ward.

In addition to the £13,000 a year basic allowance Dorset Council members will also receive a mileage payment of 45p a mile when on official business with payments for meals, parking and other necessary expenses.

Those who have caring responsibilities, whether for an adult of children, will be able to claim a dependent carers’ allowance in qualifying circumstances of up to £9 an hour.

Special responsibility allowances are also paid for councillors who take up various roles – £35,000 a year for the leader of the council; £22,000 a year for members of the council’s executive; £10,000 a year for the chairman of the council; £5,000 for vice chairman.

The chairman of the audit and governance committee, all scrutiny committees and all planning committees will get an allowance of £10,000, while the chairs of all other committees listed in the council constitution will get £5,000.

Leaders of minority groups, depending on how many member they have, will get £5,000. On current figures only the Liberal Democrat group is large enough to receive this.

No councillor will be allowed to claim more than one special responsibility allowance.

A panel set up to look at councillor allowances discovered that there was a wide range of estimates about how many hours a month it would take to carry out council duties – ranging from 10 hours a month to 240 hour a month, or more.

The panel which recommended the new level of payments concluded: “Having weighed the evidence received and balanced the various arguments, the Panel is of the view that the representative role of the new unitary councillor will be larger than that of a current county councillor. The role will be broadened by the addition of district council functions, and whilst this will be offset by the reduction in the number of electors represented, the majority of rural divisions remain large.”

The panel also noted that as the new council sheds staff more demand was likely to be placed on new councillors, who were also likely to get less officer support. It also noted that for executive members being a councillor was a full-time job.