This week’s In My View comes from Reading Borough Council leader Jason Brock. He writes:

Earlier this week, colleagues voted for the first significant change in the Councillor allowances scheme in Reading for nearly 20 years. It followed recommendations made by an Independent Remuneration Panel who found that allowances in Reading had fallen – in their own words – far, far behind other councils in Berkshire. You only have to look at the figures to see their point:

• The post of Reading Borough Council Leader paid £7,004 a year. This compares to the £28,954 paid to the Council Leader in Bracknell. After Reading, the next lowest paid Leader in Berkshire earns £18,865.

• Lead Councillors in Reading are paid £3,816 a year. Their counterparts in another part of Berkshire are paid £15,926.

• Reading has the lowest budget for councillor allowances and the lowest cost per councillor in all of Berkshire.

To put it in starker terms, the allowance for the role of Council Leader in Reading has risen by just £283 over 17 years. Allowances paid to the Deputy Leader and Lead Councillors have gone up by £231 and £155 in the same period. Whatever your opinions on local politics – and I don’t pretend all those views would be positive – a review of the Councillor allowances scheme in Reading was long overdue.

The first thing to say here is that no local Councillor I know does this for the money. The figures in Reading show that. I think I speak for all of my colleagues when I say I came into local government to try and make a positive difference to people’s lives.

Secondly, don’t underestimate the many, many hours of evening and weekend work needed to carry out the role of a Lead Councillor. In many cases that comes after a full day’s work in their day jobs. It’s something we all love doing, but it takes a great deal of commitment. Representing Reading’s residents is a very serious undertaking.

As part of its review, the independent panel sent questionnaires to every Councillor in Reading and interviewed a few. They found that young Councillors in particular faced very difficult career decisions when considering taking on the huge time commitment of a Lead Councillor role. As Councillors we also have to pay the rent or mortgage, but some had turned down new jobs and promotion because they felt they would have been unable to carry out the role sufficiently well.

Take that to its logical conclusion, and it makes you question who exactly would be representing you at a local level if only those of a certain age, or those who could afford it, would be able to take on the role.

It’s an important point. We want to encourage more young people into politics and local democracy, not fewer. We need a diverse group of Councillors to ensure that all of our communities are adequately represented.

As strange as it sounds, giving yourself a pay rise is not an easy thing to decide.

After careful consideration, and long discussions with colleagues, significant changes have been made to the Councillor allowances scheme in Reading this year. Rather than accept the panel’s proposals in full, however, we agreed to a lower level of allowances than recommended. Importantly, for the Leader, Deputy, and Lead Councillor roles, it also remains the lowest Councillor allowance scheme in all of Berkshire.