THERE was only the lone voice of Liberal Democrat leader Paul Browne speaking out at Blackburn town hall last night against the ten-fold leap in councillors' expense allowances.

So it perhaps falls to us to do a better job of rationalising this controversial increase than the Labour councillors, who simply queued up to attack him.

Certainly, it is most easy to present a better case than did the Tory group - since its members said not a word on the matter, despite voting for each councillor's basic allowance to rocket from some £300 to more than £3,000.

Seriously, however, while the householders funding these increases might be surprised at the new, much bigger expenses - which were, let it not be forgot, recommended by an independent panel - they can be justified in many ways.

Firstly, the era of the "unpaid" councillor did not serve local democracy well since it entailed government by people who were not representative of the electorate generally. Councils were mostly made up of those who could afford time away from work - such as business owners, retired old buffers and full-time trade union officials.

But if the introduction of councillors' allowances beneficially swept away these old, often-patrician elites and coteries, it also brought with it the premise that those in receipt of them should not be salaried as such for serving the public, but nor should they be out of pocket,

It follows then that they should be reasonably reimbursed for their time - not just that spent at town hall meetings, but also the often much greater amount spent dealing personally with constituents' concerns.

And now, with the advent of self-rule unitary status for Blackburn with Darwen Council, its members take on the task of doing not only the job they did before as district councillors but also that of the county councillors who supervised many of the services the borough's householders received.

In short, even though the combined services remain essentially the same, the councillors' workload and responsibility has gone up considerably.

And, added together, the average expenses of a county councillor and a former district councillor are probably little different from the sums the new unitary council members will be eligible for.

It is as simple as that.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.