I have some sympathy for local politicians undertaking cabinet roles part time. Politics is one of the least secure roles you can have. Giving up a day job to become a local full-time politician is a brave or foolish act especially if you have a family to support.

Short-term you have little job security. In the Lib Dems you have to please all your colleagues and they elect you to the role every year. Annoy them and you’re out. In the Labour party the leader appoints you. Neither routes to holding a cabinet portfolio offer much job security!

Longer term the ‘pay’ a councillor gets is an allowance and isn’t pensionable. Special Responsibility Allowance for things like cabinet roles also come without any pension. So again giving up a day job to become a full time politician means no pension.

So I absolutely get being a part-time cabinet councillor and holding a normal day job part-time that with a very considerate employer you can go back to being full-time if you need to.

What I don’t get is being in a role that needs a full-time councillor leading the portfolio but doing it part-time. Housing in Southwark is a role that needs a full-time councillor. Southwark is the largest social landlord in London and third largest in the UK. That’s not a part-time role. It transpires that Cllr Ian Wingfield is only working as Housing Cabinet councillor two days a week. To get some direction into the role he’s created a ‘quango’ to advise him costing £104,000 and appointed new senior housing council officers costing £380,000 a year. I’m appalled.

If he can only do the role part-time, and I’m sympathetic to part time woring, he should be a cabinet member for a different portfolio that could be done part-time without incurring huge costs for council tax payers and tenants.