Bedford councillor "really cross" members spent more time talking about allowances than children's education

A councillor told fellow members she wished there was the same level of debate on children’s education as there was on ensuring councillors’ allowances are frozen.

Councillor Phillippa Martin-Moran-Bryant (Conservative, Great Barford) spoke out during Bedford Borough Council’s full meeting on Wednesday (January 11).

She told councillors she was “really cross” about spending more time on allowances than on children’s education.

Earlier in the meeting, the portfolio holder for education and children’s services, councillor James Valentine (Labour, Kempston West) gave a presentation on school standards in Bedford borough.

This included the new education improvement strategy to improve the attainment gap with the national averages.

Following the presentation, there were only questions and comments from two councillors, including councillor Martin-Moran-Bryant.

But the debate to decide how to ensure councillors’ allowances were frozen for the ensuing year involved input from seven councillors (including councillor Martin-Moran-Bryant’s comments) and two council officers.

Following the meeting, councillor Martin-Moran-Bryant clarified her comments made during the allowances debate.

“Essentially, we spent a lot of time talking about councillors’ remuneration which is important, I am pro a freeze on that,” she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

“But I just felt it was really wrong that everyone got very heated and talked a lot about that when we had hardly any debate on schools whatsoever, or on children’s education.

“And that is so fundamentally important, and that’s where our focus should be and that just made me feel really cross.

“I think it made me feel that we had the focus in the wrong place in this meeting,” she said.

The councillors voted to inform the Independent Remuneration Panel that the council supports a further freeze on allowance rates for 2023 and 2024.