A PLAN to give pensions to Bury councillors has been turned down by members of the council's standards committee.

They voted unanimously to reject the proposal, put forward by an independent remuneration panel, and will be advising all elected members to go along with their verdict.

The remuneration panel said that allowing councillors under 70 to join the Local Government pension Scheme would help attract candidates who might otherwise lose out financially because of their public service. But the standards committee disagreed with these findings.

Councillor John Smith, committee chairman, said: "There has been no desire expressed by councillors for such a scheme, and no evidence that members of the public have been deterred from standing for the council on the basis of not having pension rights. I don't think, in most cases, any deterral has been financial."

This was seconded by Tory member David Higgin, who questioned whether the public could afford to contribute £50,000 towards councillors' pensions.

"When the original premise was put forward to increase allowances, it was to make the position of council available to a wider span of people who could not afford to take time off work," he said. "I applaud that aim: the last thing that a council should have are full-time paid councillors. We need a wide variety of people to stand for council and contribute to the decisions.

"I think this pensionable scheme is not something that is required. It's something the Government has put forward to increase the take-up of candidates, but I don't believe it's necessary in this town, both now and in the foreseeable future."

Earlier, members said it was unfortunate that they had to vote on their own pay increases, saying they would prefer an outside body to make those decisions.

The committee, which met on Thursday (Sep 25), unanimously recommended that full council reject the pension scheme at its next meeting on November 5.