AN independent panel to set councillors expenses is likely to be established at Stockton Borough Council.

Stockton councillors’ have been frozen since 2013 and there has been an overall cut in the overall amount paid to all councillors since 2010.

However the council’s cabinet committee has now approved a plan to appoint a special panel to set expenses and the proposal will now be discussed at Full Council on Wednesday, September 14.

The authority used to have an Independent Renumeration Panel but it has not met for three years.

Now a new panel is proposed which would itself pay a chairman £350 per day with a maximum overall pay of £1,750. Other members would received £75 per day, or a maximum of £375. Currently, all Stockton councillors receive a basic allowance of £9,300 a year. However leading councillors can be paid much more. The leader receives £25,000, deputy leader, £13.750 and cabinet members, £11,250.

Chairmen and women of scrutiny committees receive £6,250 extra and vice-chairs £3,125. The leader of the opposition is granted £5,000 while the mayor gets £15,625 and deputy mayor, £4,910. Other councillors on Teesside received a far lower basic allowance. Middlesbrough councillors receive £6,130 a year and Hartlepool’s councillors get paid less than anywhere else in the region at just £5,825 a year.

A Stockton council report recommending an independent panel said: “There have been reductions to members allowances, including fewer cabinet members and select committee chair and vice-chair positions and the freezing of the basic allowance since 2013/14.”