‘Ban Assembly members from being councillors to stop their double salaries’

City Hall politicians should be banned from boosting their pay by doubling up as local councillors, an independent review has urged.

The Senior Salaries Review Body recommends London Assembly members should not carry out other paid publicsector work, and calls on the Mayor and Assembly to consider restrictions that could save about £250,000 a year in pay.

The report found that 12 Assembly members topped up their basic £52,910 City Hall salaries with about £10,000 extra as borough councillors.

The highest earner was Tory Steve O'Connell, who earns £117,460 in total from the Assembly, Croydon council and the Metropolitan Police Authority.

Richard Barnes receives £105,519 as Boris Johnson's statutory deputy mayor and a Hillingdon councillor.

Another high earner is Kit Malthouse, on £109,340. He is not a councillor but tops up his Assembly pay with money he gets for being vice-chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority.

Two of the 12, Conservative Gareth Bacon and Labour's Navin Shah, are also in private employment.

The report called on Assembly members who sit on the MPA to voluntarily forgo their £9,570 annual allowance, as the police work is central to their
main job.

The £25,613 allowance received by Brian Coleman as Tory fire authority chairman — he earns £88,997 in total — was about £6,300 too high and
should be frozen, the report added.

The body wants Assembly members to declare earnings outside City Hall, and the amount of time they spent on these duties. But the report has led to anger at City Hall and claims review
body chairman Bill Cockburn had failed to understand the issues.

"It's probably the worst public document I have seen in a long time," one source said.

Mr Coleman said Assembly members were underpaid in comparison with the Mayor's aides. He said: "We are working full-time to do our best for the capital's residents, and those of us with
roles on functional bodies [such as the MPA or fire authority] are working all the hours that God sends."

Assembly chairman Darren Johnson — whose City Hall salary of £63,468, is supplemented by £12,977 from Lewisham council, where he leads the Green group — backed a joint inquiry into pay, but said this had to tie in with work being done by the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

He said: "The report does not suggest members should not be taking posts in other organisations, whether it be charities or other boards or quangos.

"I think it would be impossible to have any rules
on this. There are definite benefits in some Assembly members having a continued presence in, and feel for, local government."

The SSRB rejected demands from the Assembly Tory group for higher salaries to be paid to senior politicians.

Tory group leader Roger Evans said the report had to be taken seriously.

A spokeswoman for the Mayor, who told the body his £143,911 salary was "entirely appropriate", said it was too early to comment.

She added that a response was being prepared for a meeting of the Greater London Authority's standards committee, which will consider the report's recommendations next month.

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