Labour Chair of SPT forced to quit

News emerges today that Labour Councillor Alistair Watson, Chair of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, is to quit the role following several weeks of expenses stories in the Sunday Times. These allegations have resulted in my colleague Cllr Hendry referring SPT to Audit Scotland.

The Times quotes a Labour source:

“What’s been coming out in recent weeks about SPT’s expenses has been damaging and it’s beginning to damage the council. There’s a pattern of SPT spending money, not illegally or immorally, but in a way that its usefulness is not entirely clear. As chairman he should have had a better grip on it.”

I have to admit, I find Cllr Watson very helpful on transport issues on a personal level. He has a great deal of knowledge and experience in these matters, and even very recently arranged for officials to talk me through works on Dalmarnock Station. It will be difficult for any incumbent (Labour, natch, given the composition of the board) to live up to that.

Watson's attitude to expenses and 'fact finding' trips on the public pound, however, is not acceptable - the culmination of this being a highly co-incidental and spurious trip to Manchester to meet with officials to fit in with Rangers playing in the UEFA cup final. I'm not quite sure of the morality of that - but it's certainly not appropriate.

This attitude seems to permeate what SPT does, with trips justifying wild plans and unrealistic ideas which are regularly sooked up by a supine and impressionable local media. SPT needs to stick to fixing the basics - keeping the subway running and protecting vital local services.

Payback time?

I'm absolutely astounded at the news that MPs have paid back nearly half a million pounds, for expenses they shouldn't have claimed. That's even MPs, that's 182 of them.

According to the BBC:

The figures published by the Commons Members Estimate Committee on Thursday also reveal that Barbara Follett - the tourism minister - has repaid £32,976.

It is one of the largest single sums repaid by any MP - the largest is £41,709 by care services minister Phil Hope, who had already publicised the fact he was repaying it in the light of constituents' anger.

Ms Follett, married to best selling author Ken Follett, had defended claiming £25, 411 for security patrols at her London home after she was mugged, saying it was within the rules.

The figures also show for the first time, that cabinet minister Douglas Alexander has repaid more than £12,000.

My own expenses in the Council for last year totalled £1,058.50. I have just enough money in the bank to pay that back if I had to. I can't get my head around people signing over cheques for thousands of pounds as if they were paying for their weekly messages. Is this what real, grown ups can do in their life? Or is it just certain MPs who have been creaming off money from the state for all these years?

My expenses in the Council were for telephone bills - £310.58 for the year - and an annual zonecard - £748.00. I was given the option of a zonecard or a parking space in the City Chambers. I don't think it's fair that while other workers have to pay a premium for city centre parking, we get it for nothing. I also haven't claimed for mileage or taxis.

So you can get a bit of a comparison, I've listed my expenses alongside my ward colleagues.

NAME	Simpson, Ruth*	Redmond, George**	Thewliss, Alison
SALARY	£28,131.02	£28,626.83	£15,797.52
TRAVEL	£2,909.30	£645.83	£748.00
SUBSISTENCE	£1,252.86	£0.00	£0.00
TELEPHONE & ICT	£505.91	£514.88	£310.58
OTHER	£13.00	£0.00	£0.00
TOTAL EXPENSES	£4,681.07	£1,160.71	£1,058.58
TOTAL	£32,812.09	£29,787.54	£16,856.10

*Executive Member for Land & Environment/Councillor (wef March 2009)
**Planning Committee Convenor/Executive Member for Health & Wellbeing (wef March 2009)

PS - sorry, no idea why that's jumped down the page. Thought I was doing well Html-ing myself a table!

Honesty will put people off

I'll admit to a bit of a sigh of exasperation when I read this article on the BBC website, which reports on the claim that having to publish expenses claims will put people off entering politics;

Greater transparency over MPs' expenses could put people off standing for Parliament, Commons authorities say.


Resources boss Andrew Walker said rent, phone, food and other bills could offer a "peephole" on MPs' private lives.

I had two gut reactions to this; firstly - good. Politics has far too many people already in it to make a quick buck. Money should never be what attracts a person into a career in public service, not least as it opens you to corruption from the outset. I didn't stand for election to make money, and that that's how things have remained (if you want info on how much ordinary Councillors actually earn, it's here).

Secondly, scrutiny is good. Elected politicians are paid for by the public purse, and it's only right that the public should know how that money is being spent.

The Scottish Parliament, after a few early slip-ups (step forward Henry McLeish and David McLetchie), has made it's MSPs accountable down to the bottle of milk and the newspaper through public publishing of allowances paid. If you want, you can check through every MSP in Scotland. You can find out that Wendy Alexander for reasons unknown bought several copies of the same book. You can discover (and ponder why) Pauline McNeill paid minimal rent on her West End office in the last session. It's all in there.

So why doesn't Westminster follow the Scottish Parliament's good example? When even the much maligned European Parliament has made moves recently to improve it's systems of accountability, you can see how far Westminster is lagging far behind. All moves to improve access to allowances information tend to be fiercely resisted. Why? The only plausible reason is that MPs have too much to lose financially from public disclosure of their spending.

You might wonder where I think Glasgow City Council fits in all of this. Well, we do have to at least complete a declaration of interests. Mine is here. Personally, I don't think that's enough accountability, and I believe Council should also follow the example of the Scottish Parliament.