As an aside – your turn of phrase is interesting:”Would the Lib Dems, and your Tory partners from so many councils…”. This rather conveniently for you pushes a message that the Lib Dems and Tories are alike and often co-operate on councils, unlike Labour! However, as we both know the Labour and the Tories are and have been in coalition on many councils, just as Labour and the Lib Dems have been in coalition on others. Given the current state of affairs in the Labour party and the number of privileged MPs, Lords and donors in the party you’re shaky ground with your implication. And just so you know, I consider myself and my party a very, very long way from capable of being described as partners to the Tories (Nu Labour on the other hand seems much closer to Tory’ism).

Labour could go a long way towards making the council more accessible to those not independently wealthy by changing the times of their meetings to make them easier to attend by those of us with jobs. Sadly they’ve refused time and time again.

Good work for providing the voters with information they have a right to see.
The average “pay” of a Labour councillor is £17,777.
A bit less then a trainee manager in McDonalds.
Would the Lib Dems, and your Tory partners from so many councils, like a system where only the independently wealthy can afford to be councillors?

1. “Presumably the Executive Support Members (ESMs) in Salford have similar demanding roles to (paid) deputy chairs/cabinet members in other authorities?”

Presumably indeed – nobody knows, and in fact we have no evidence that they do anything whatsoever above and beyond what the back-benchers do.

2. “even though he feels hard done by with 34% less in allowances”.

For the record – I do not feel remotely hard done by with my allowance. I think it more than enough for the role of a councillor without additional duties. In fact I was the only councillor who spoke out against massive rises in councillor salaries (39% for some compared with 2.9% for admin staff at the council) a couple of years ago. I gave the difference between my salary rise and that of the rise given to staff to Salford Women’s Aid.

http://www.salfordadvertiser.co.uk/news/s/507514_merry_christmas_for_council_leader_john_whos_just_been_given_a_141_pay_rise

3. I know nothing of the Bristol Lib Dems – I don’t spend my time investigating the practices of every council in Britain. Additionally, I know you hate John Leech and his colleagues (that’s hate rather than oppose), but assertion is not the same as evidence and I take any of the bile you spout about him with a mountain of salt.

Four points:

1. Presumably the ESM’s are like deputy chairs in other authorities?

2. You know that the basic in Manchester is almost at ESM level?

3. You do not say anything about the big INCREASE Lib DFems brought in in Bristol on accession, or anything about the equivalents in the atrociously managed (it’s official) Lib Dem Liverpool. Any reason for that?

4. And you say nothing about the Hospital Hoaxer Cllr John Leech MP who is trousering his £60,000 from HoP, £22,000 John Lewis List, £10,000 Communications – which he is using for hybrid political leaflets, PLUS payments to Lib Dem activists, PLUS his councillor wages of £15,000+.

Leech promised to donate these – after tax presumably – to local Lib Dem constituency funds. Yet of c £45,000 only £3,500 has darkened the door of the Electoral Commission register.

In fact there is a great mystery with Manchester Lib Dem funds in that they appear to have a campaign worker and fairly deep pockets in general but scarcely any donations in are recorded.

I applaud your intention of giving transparency. Perhaps you would try for fairness as well and shine the light on Lib Dem authorities showing how things should be done?

You’ll also have to accept that my experience on the council has not given me an automatic expectation that if I ask for information I’ll receive it.