As you say, this is a very sensitive area and there appears to be two very clear opinions on the subject. These are mainly based around the length of time a councillor has served. The old timers are almost without exception against the level of payments now in place and will always seek (when in opposition) to use the findings of the annual independent review as a stick to beat the ruling group with.
I am, in principle, a supporter of setting a level that would allow somebody who wants to serve as a councillor the financial flexibility to do so. However, those people who might fit this category are limited in numbers. Young people will be seeking to further their careers and taking a significant period of time out of their career would be bound to disadvantage them in the long term.
The group best served by this arrangement are young mums who need part time work in order to help the household budget and often seek part time flexible working in order to do this. On the face of it this is the ideal solution, because what is missing from the vast majority of elected member groups in local government is young people and women. If we can set a figure that equates to that offered by part time work, then we might just redress the balance.
However, in using this approach do we then end up with a group of people more interested in the money than the job? If this is a genuine possiblity, then we need to seriously think about setting minimum performance standards for these members and some way of measuring that performance during their period of office. This performance information would then be made available to the public and based on this, the public would determine the suitablity of that individual to hold further office come election time. Such a suggestion is of course highly controversial and would inevitably change the whole approach and attitudes to elected members.
As it stands, the cabinet system is already begining to reflect what has happend at the higher levels of the organisations that supposedly represent elected members. There exists an elite group of elected members who have a full time job doing whatever it is they do and started out like the rest of us elected members; didn't they? How did this elite group of supposedly ordinary elected members become the chosen few? No doubt at some point they made themselves continuously available, by either having enough money not to need to work or owning the business (an elite indeed).
On the front line Cabinet members now carry more and more 'responsiblity' (can it really be responsiblity if you are not in danger of loosing your job for making a wrong decision?). With this responsiblity comes a requirement to attend more meeting, represent your authority at more and more seminars and presentations and generally be in the right place at the right time.
My particular leader has seen fit to appoint himself two deputies, so that he can go to the meetings (invariably in London) he considers important to ?? As a cabinet member myself, I only work part time, 3 days a week, since leaving the RAF, in order to give myself enough time to do the job. I could only make the decision to do this because the allowances were nearly sufficent to cover the pay I would normally have gained from working 5 days a week. Unfortunately, I now realise that nearly sufficent is not enough and that this was probably an expensive mistake. It is possible that I will not be able to sustain this position for another 3 years and will soon have to seriously consider resigning from the cabinet and taking up full time working.
As such I will be moving further away from the power base and will have to content myself with being an ordinary member with limited or little influence. If you're not in you must be out and if you're out, you stand no chance of becoming anything more than an ordinary member, however ambitious or dedicated you might be.
In short, unless somebody can afford to be a councillor, either because of personal circumstances or because the allowances enable it to be a viable form of employment, the elite will continue to be that and the power base will always be white, male, over 50, retired or rich. However, with pay comes responsiblity and with responsiblity comes performance monitoring and accountability, beyond the once every 4 years thorough the ballot box that some of my colleagues claim is enough.