£18,000 for a "part time" job?! Is that a joke?

After having written my first blog, introducing myself to the blogosphere and the good citizens of Hulme, I invited a close friend to have a read of it to give me feedback. This was someone whose opinions I value and who cares about me. Firstly, she asked me if I'd consulted anyone else before writing it? "Er, no..." Had I shown it to anyone else first? "Not really," I said. "Why?" Did anyone else read it? "Yes, some people had read it and said they liked it," I said. Oh that's all right then, she said.

I knew she had spotted something she didn't like, but it was like pulling teeth to get her to say what it was. Eventually, she came out with it... "That bit where you joke about being a councillor - £18,000 for a part-time job - I don't think it's something you should joke about..."

"But that wasn't a joke!" I said. "That's what you get paid for being a councillor. And yes, it's a part-time job. I was being entirely factual..."

It got me thinking that maybe other people might think I was joking. But no, this is the truth. The wage is £18,000 for the lowest rung of the elected Council hierarchy. Ah, but now I've tried to find the source of this information and failed, and it seems I got it wrong. If you look here:
http://snipurl.com/rfy3g then we can actually see that the basic wage appears to be £15,618.71 (although for some reason Emily Lomax appears to have received only £14,398.71 in 2008-09).

And as for the "part-time" bit - this is also the truth: if councillors don't have one of the higher positions ("additional responsibilities"), the post is considered part time and they are expected to work for a living in the outside world. For instance, if I and when I am elected a councillor then I shall continue to work as a lecturer at the Manchester College, which has a duty by law to allow me to reduce my hours in order to take up the elected position.

This begs the question - is being a councillor really a "part-time" job? As my close friend pointed out, it's the sort of job that would be never-ending, so long as you take it seriously and do it properly, of course (unlike two out of the three representatives that we have in Hulme). There must be a million and one things that one could be chasing up every minute of the day - housing problems, Council incompetence, residents' grievances, etc. etc.

Whoever decides to stand for Council needs to be aware that
a) the wage is not great, but at the same time for a part-time job it is actually more than what a lot of people have to live on (I have spent many years struggling on 12k or less);
b) the actual job is very demanding IF YOU DO IT PROPERLY and can easily eat up your entire life.

I say all this to make it clear that councillors are probably not in it for the money, although many of them are careerists who hope that it will be but a stepping-stone to bigger and better things (I'm sure that most MPs, for instance, have made their way up via their local councils).

I am also aware that being in a tiny minority (e.g., one in 96, if one happens to be the only Green councillor) makes the job even more difficult and demanding. Here is an excellent article by Vanessa Hall about her experience as the lone Green from 2003-08: From the Inside (in the excellent Mule).

Neither myself nor Steve Durrant are under any illusions about the difficult task ahead...