Since when has volunteering been a crime? Confelicity attacked for declaring we will volunteer our services if elected as Southend councillors

It is an upside down world when Southend residents who want to volunteer their services to their city -  if fortunate enough to be elected as local councillors in 2026 - are vilified for wishing to do so.

Our policy, which is to return the councillor position to a voluntary role, is not to insult how hard councillors work and the work they do.  It is not meant to allow only those who have the financial means to accommodate a voluntary role or to be interpreted as a measure of a councillor’s value.

Although it will save around £1m, it is not meant as a money-saving exercise either.

It is only to say that all Confelicity candidates will stand on a voluntary platform, because through our discussion at a recent manifesto meeting, we found it marries nicely with our beliefs about civic pride and civic duty. Therefore, if Confelicity were to achieve a majority of 26 councillors or more at the 2026 local elections we will indeed look to introduce a policy that makes it a voluntary role for all. At the very least £10.4K will be saved per Confelicity councillor.

Confelicity motion

I did not put forward this motion on the Confelicity manifesto agenda. The member who raised it is hugely experienced in local political matters and who has lived and worked in Southend all their life.  What they don’t know about local politics may not be worth knowing! Those who have suggested the motion is not thought out do not realise that it was already thought out and actioned as it was originally how the council was run.

I must confess I would never have thought of re-introducing it as I had no problem with councillor pay.  They look after roughly 3000 residents each and that can total a lot of emails, phone calls and meetings, as well reading reports and voting on various important matters. If anything I was surprised it wasn’t a whole lot more.

When I received the suggested motion a few weeks before the Confelicity meeting I couldn’t see it going anywhere.  I was interested in Cabinet pay as I felt this was excessive, but either way it wasn’t something I could see anyone getting behind. Our agenda included other issues I personally felt more attuned to such as youth outreach, campaigning against the Hadleigh Farm greenbelt development and a national topic of immigration numbers, but as it turned out, not only did I vote in favour, I have since become quite a zealot.

Let’s talk about the money

Savings

There are 51 councillors who each receive £10.4K and the Cabinet take anywhere up to £36K. When taking into account fairly recent debates about saving £25K by dimming street lights and losing dementia services at a saving of £250K, the value of this money is invaluable.

There are some who believe £1m is a pittance.

Within a multi-million pound local government budget it may appear small.  Within a multi-billion pound national government budget infinitesimal. For the average person on the street this would be life-changing - but it’s all a matter of perspective. My perspective is £1m is a lot and especially so if it emanates from the taxpayer.

When a potential saving of £1m exists, especially in the context of the well publicised financial distress of Southend Council (£8m projected deficit as we speak) if all councillors returned to the days when it was a vocation, then it should be taken seriously as a topic of debate.

Money and Quality

I wouldn’t like to say whether today’s councillors are better quality or qualified than their predecessors because of the money, but the measure of achievement between past and present does not seem particularly correlated.

Not to be the bearer of doom, but over the last few decades we have seen:

The decline of the high street; the longest pleasure pier in the world to nowhere; lack of public services and infrastructure; lack of social cohesion and civic pride; lost dementia services, sky-high parking charges; few career opportunities; wipe out of youth clubs; decline in general mental health; pot holed roads and cracked pavements; poor council investments such as Victoria, Seaway and Queensway; the dilapidated Kursaal; the knocking down of Warrior Square swimming pool - a primary draw to the town centre; closure of Southend Marine Activity Centre; loss of the Air Show; increase in homelessness and lack of housing for Southend residents; lost green spaces; sewage in our seas; spiralling costs for adult and child services; street lights dimmed at night, reduction of grass cutting and now we can’t even get our bins emptied more than once a week!

Yes, there are infinite reasons why yesteryear was a vast improvement on today and national government will be the most obvious culprit, but in the end we have paid somewhere in the region of an extra £20m to £30m in councillor allowances over the years and do we feel the result is satisfactory?

Whilst the vast majority of councillors are passionate about Southend and work hard for residents, I do not believe there is concrete evidence to suggest paying councillors has produced better outcomes. These days all I hear at council meetings are different ways residents can be taxed, charged or fined, and residents are supposed to be thrilled when we are gifted (with our own money) with a brand new bin, as the Leader of the Council recently puff-chested about!

Question to councillors

To be fair to all councillors today, they took on the position with the financial package in place and it would be wrong (and likely illegal) to change that unless they voluntarily gave up the allowance, so the question is would they? We’ve been bereft of sacrificial leadership for so long. All we hear is people taking - our new Prime Minister is a shameful testament to this, so this would be refreshing to say the least.

When we first announced the policy it was most odd to have been attacked for saying we would volunteer our services, and while I fully acknowledge the arguments that the role takes a lot of time and that we might think about an amendment to ensure people on low incomes are not excluded, I believe very much that volunteering will bring no less quality and commitment than, at the very least, that which already exists. Just ask any volunteer across the city and they will tell you if working for free impedes their ability to carry out their labour of love.

So, to any Southend Councillors reading this, would you back a return to it being a voluntary role? Just as the Southend Confelicity Party intend to do.

This is the million pound question.