By Steve Stratford, Deputy Editor
THIS week we are printing details of which of our esteemed county councillors claim the most in travel and hotel/ meal expenses, as well as the ten highest paid.
We do this every year, but it's not the Weekly News that prints the figures out of devilment to annoy the councillors - the authority makes them public itself, and publishes the full rundown on its website and in its latest bulletin.
The Weekly News doesn't have the space to reproduce the whole expenses chart, so we have chosen to print the top tens for expenses claims and net salaries.
The figures for the net wages show how much some of the councillors on the authority's ruling cabinet get after income tax and NI contributions are deducted. Top of the pile is Conwy's leader Goronwy Edwards, who pockets more than £34,000, plus just over £4,700 in various expenses.
In second place is Cllr Gwilym Richards who, until February 2007, was Conwy's portfolio holder for lifelong learning (that's education to you and me). Because Gwilym lives in far-flung Pentrellyncymer his travel expenses weigh in at £3,700 - that's £72 a week. I suppose that's one of the costs of democracy, that a county councillor who earnt £24,000 as Conwy's education guru happens to live as far away from Bodlondeb as possible, and so claims so much in travel costs just to get to "work".
Of course, figures are cold and hard and we don't know why, for instance, Cllr Linda Groom claimed £656 in hotel/ meal expenses, or why Cllr Bob Squire claimed £681 back. We have to trust that the people with their fingers on the county's purse strings deem these expenses legitimate and accurate, which I am sure they are. Conwy County Council doesn't publish these figures "in context", and so neither is the Weekly News.
But it's good to know the numbers, isn't it? Just so we know...
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