Liberal Democrats on Walsall Council supported a Labour motion at Monday’s Full Council Meeting to cut allowances to the borough’s most senior councillors.

We point this out because Labour do not have an overall majority on the Council. They therefore need the support of others to get anything through.

There is a clear difference of opinion on the subject of how much councillors should be paid for the time they spend on council and council related work.

There are those who think that it is an entitlement, and certainly there were a number of councillors on the Tory benches who supported this theory. Then there are those who think it should be done for free.

Personally I don’t subscribe to either of these. The former is crass at a time when others are being asked to tighten their belts. The latter discriminates against ordinary people who need to work in favour of those who can take unpaid leave to carry out the duties of a councillor.

It is my view that how much a councillor gets paid should not be decided upon by councillors. The work of a councillor should be matched to a pay grade within Local Government then whatever pay settlement is agreed for the workforce would also apply to councillors. Pay freeze, 1%, whatever, it should be the same.