What does the mayoral advisor on the left have that the cabinet member on the right doesn’t?
The answer is a not ‘a fucking clue’.
Thanks to a recent FOI request we know that it’s a special responsibility allowance on top of his basic councillor’s pay.*
Richard Crawford advises on ‘Resident Experience’ – whatever that means – and gets a handsome £33,395 a year extra for his trouble.
Jo Corbett looks after the Equalities portfolio but “there is no renumeration linked to this post.” She gets nothing.
If this were anywhere but Sir Robin Wales’s Newham you’d think that was some kind of joke, but it’s par for the course here.
Of the mayor’s nine cabinet members five are men and four are women. Of the men, four get top whack – an extra £33,395 a year. The fifth, the Rev. Quintin Peppiatt, has declined to take an extra allowance this year.** Among the women only Ellie Robinson gets the full allowance. Frances Clarke and Lakmini Shah get £6,679 each; Jo Corbett gets nothing.
Outside the cabinet it is no better. Mayoral advisors Andrew Baikie, Clive Furness and Ian Corbett join Councillor Crawford in the top pay bracket. Terry Paul and David Christie each get £13,358. Joy Laguda is paid what Sir Robin clearly thinks a woman’s work is worth – £6,679.
It beggars belief that Newham Labour members allow their leader to get away with this year after year, apparently without question.
Equalities, my arse.
* The current basic allowance for councillors is £10,829
** Cllr Peppiatt hasn’t always been so self-denying. Between 2010 and 2014 he accepted an annual SRA of £18,624 on top of his basic.
forestgatedotnet 
In his annual election address for the multitude of Union and Labour posts he likes to stand for, Newham Councillor John Gray states ” Financial decisions need to be open and transparent and easily understood.” (http://grayee.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/election-address-for-greater-london.html?m=1)
How hypocritical then that neither he nor any of his Newham councillor colleagues will go on record to let the people of the borough know what financial rewards the Council’s £40 million investment in the Olympic Stadium will reap that have not already been countered by the current administration’s multimillion pound losses and fiscal blunders.
Mike Law
P.S: someone should let Ted Jeory know that Newham Council has failed to produce time sheets for mayoral advisors (he maintains these are the best measure of determining if elected members are value for money). This is unsurprising as the Mayor of Newham pays his mates for being unemployed (the more days one is available, the more money one gets), so time sheets were never part of the deal.