Are our loadsamoney councillors and officials worth all this cash?
WEST Dunbartonshire councillors who are presiding over the shambles that passes for local government in Dumbarton.
West Dunbartonshire Council convenes for its monthly meeting at 4 pm in the old Burgh Hall in Church Street, Dumbarton, on Thursday, June 17, at 4 pm. Maybe we should all go along to encourage them in their invaluable work. Make certain you get in. They have been known to lock the public out in the past.
Councillors and officials will be invited to look at the Annual Accounts, which will reveal that some of them are being paid salaries which could be said to be beyond the dreams of avarice.
This is at a time when there is a Cost of Living crisis, and families are having to rely on food banks such as Food For Thought in Dumbarton Town Centre, which, with impeccable timing, councillors have slashed their grant by 50 per cent of the desperately needed money.
The paltry £25,000 that the Council will be giving (grudgingly, no doubt) to Food for Thought is one quarter of what most of the £100,000 plus each of the council’s chief officers receive by way of salary, and around one sixth of the £162,000 Chief Executive Peter Hessett is paid.
It is half the £50,000 in pay and allowances that Councillor Martin Rooney, the Labour leader, receives.
His son, Councillor William Rooney, also Labour, pulls down £30,000, but there is no mention of nepotism or how the Labour candidate selection works. William is in the happy position of having two salaries, the second from his “day job” at the University of Glasgow.
That is a cool total of at least £80,000 going into the Rooney family bank accounts.
Between £30,000 and £25,000 is what each of the unpromoted councillors receives for taking their seat on the Gravy Train, and a few of them also get expenses, mainly Rooney senior, who charges the most.
That’s not enough for them, it seems, but more than enough to feed their own families and not to have to use Food for Thought or any other food bank, which has been forced to close its branches in Alexandria and Clydebank through lack of council support.
Then there are the councillors and the spin doctors who used to be journalists before going over to “the dark side” and would have you believe West Dunbartonshire is doing well and looking well, even though the town centre is falling apart and the River Leven is littered with wrecks.
The Labour provost took off to Westminster, and such a cock up was made of the transition by his party colleagues that they managed to replace Douglas McAllister with an SNP woman on £37,000 a year.
The Council has banned me from asking important questions, and their communications team have smeared me by making it impossible to hold power to account, which is anti democratic.
Their silence is costly for the taxpayers, about £400,000 a year, according to figures I have seen in the past. Their boss pulls down £111,000 a year for saying nothing. To me, at least. And anyway, she has the citizens and the libraries to look after. Busy is a four-letter word at the Council.
They list among their “achievements” the museum and library that are being created out of Glencairn House in the High Street, and another new museum that has been created in Clydebank. Even though the last one was yet another flop. Clydebank is not a tourist town.
We would like to remind them that their grass-cutting budget cuts remain with us in many parts of West Dunbartonshire. If it looks like a dump …
They won’t like it that I have published their salaries here. But we don’t spin at The Dumbarton Democrat, we stir. I challenge any one of them to stand up and justify these payments, given the state of the council and the country in general. However, when they address the public, they continue to talk themselves up.
West Dunbartonshire, according to our elected representatives, has many strengths, including significant sites of natural beauty and heritage, which have been allowed to become overgrown and unsightly with their grass-cutting budget cuts and everything else that has come under their axe.
This region, they say, boasts many attractions ranging from the iconic Dumbarton Rock and the Titan Crane to the beauty of Loch Lomond. Haven’t they just recently abandoned the Titan Crane to the wind and the weather because it, too, has been a failure? More public money down the drain.
Dumbarton Castle, Glencairn House in High Street and polluted Loch Lomond.
Dumbarton Castle is being held together by volunteers such as Elspeth Crocket, and raw sewage in parts of Loch Lomond makes it dangerous to swim. Don’t mention litter along the shore.
The Council claims responsibility for providing a wide range of local authority services (including education, housing, environmental health, environmental services, planning, economic development, employment, highways and transport) to residents, but these are at best mediocre and are frequently criticised.
The Council is led by 22 councillors, elected every five years to represent the residents. Following the Local Government elections in March 2022, at which around half the people bothered to vote, the Council has had a Labour administration.
Councillor Martin Rooney is the Council Leader. The political make-up of the Council is eight Scottish Labour Party, seven Scottish National Party, six Independent and one West Dunbartonshire Community Party.
The so-called Independents are dyke jumpers who quit the parties to which they belonged after years of behind-the-scenes squabbling and fighting. The political parties nowadays could have their meetings in a phone box.
The annual return of councillors’ salaries and expenses for 2025/26 is available for any member of the public to view at all Council libraries and public offices during normal working hours. It is also available on the Council’s website, but the typeface is minuscule and, for most folk, unreadable.
Councillors Allowances and Remuneration
Karen Murray Conaghan Provost £37,535
Kevin Crawford Councillor £22,662
Ian Dickson Councillor £25,973
Diane Docherty Councillor £25,973.47
Fiona Hennebry, Convener of Appeals Committee until 20/3/2026;
Convener of HSCP Audit & Performance Committee until 20/3/2026 £31,023.58
Gurpreet Singh Johal Convener of Housing & Communities Committee
Convener of Appeals Committee from 20/3/2026 £31,505.03
Daniel Lennie Councillor £25,973.
Jim Bollan Councillor £23,655
David McBride, Convener of Infrastructure, Regeneration & Economic Development
Depute Convener of Joint Consultative Forum, Depute Leader £31,302.78
Jonathan McColl Councillor £25,988.13
Michelle McGinty, Convener of HSCP Audit & Performance Committee from 20/3/2026
Convener of Local Negotiating Committee for Teachers from 13/3/2026
Convener of Educational Services Committee from 20/3/2026 £25,987.13
June McKay Councillor £25,979.87
John Millar Convener of Licensing Board £31,297.94
Lawrence O’Neill, Convener of Licensing & Planning Committee
Convener of Planning Committee
Convener of Local Review Body £31,807.79
Lauren Oxley Councillor £26,152.25
Chris Pollock Councillor £25,979.56
Martin Rooney, Leader of Council
Convener of Community Planning West Dunbartonshire Management Board
Convener of Cultural Committee
Convenor of Recruitment & Individual Performance Management Committee £50,086.32
William Rooney Convener of Corporate Services Committee £31,288.21
Gordon Scanlan, Leader of the Opposition
Convener of Audit Committee £31,514.68
Clare Steel, Convener of Educational Services Committee until 13/3/2026
Convener of Local Negotiating Committee for Teachers from 13/3/2026 £31,019.82
Hazel Sorrell Depute Provost
Convener of Tendering Committee £31,284.43
Sophie Traynor Councillor £25,973.47 £25,996.59
Total payments £648,693.65
The salaries of senior employees are set with reference to national arrangements. The Scottish Joint Negotiating Committee (SJNC) for Local Authority Services sets the salaries for the Chief Executives of Scottish local authorities.
The post of Chief Officer, Health and Social Care Partnership, is a joint post between the Council and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. Details of the Chief Officer HSCP post are included in the Integration Joint Board’s remuneration report. The Council funds 50% of this post, and NHS Greater Glasgow funds the remaining 50%.
The only benefits received by employees are salary, employer contributions to the pension fund and, where applicable, payment for election duties. There were no bonuses, compensation for loss of office or other benefits paid to senior employees during the year.
Senior Officers’ Salaries, Fees & Allowances for 2025/26 are listed below.
Their recent generous pay rise. Yes, it was a generous lift when compared to what other employees were being offered, such as the home carers who toil each day helping sick and disabled people. The carers save many thousands of pounds of public money, much more than the carers earn, by not having to take up space in a hospital bed and adding to the ever-lengthening NHS waiting list.
Total Remuneration for them in 2025/26 is as follows:
Peter Hesett, Gillian Hamilton, Victoria Rogers, Peter Barry, Laura Mason and Beth Colwell.
Peter Hessett, Chief Executive £162,932
Lesley James, Head of Children’s Healthcare & Criminal Justice –
Chief Social Work Officer £105,909
Laura Mason Chief Officer – Education, Learning & Attainment
(until she left on 07/08/25) £41,327
Gillian Hamilton Chief Officer – Education, Learning & Attainment
(in post from 30/09/25) £55,098
Laurence Slavin Chief Officer – Resources £115,654
Alan Douglas Chief Officer – Regulatory & Regeneration £112,095
Victoria Rogers, Chief Officer – People & Technology £115,654
Gail MacFarlane Chief Officer – Roads & Neighbourhood £115,654
Peter Barry, Chief Officer – Housing & Employability £115,654
Amanda Graham Chief Officer – Citizen, Culture & Facilities £115,654
John Anderson, General Manager of West Dunbartonshire Leisure £93,10
Beth Colwell, Chief Officer, Health and Social Care Partnership
Details of the post of Chief Officer HSCP (Health and Social Care Partnership) are included in the remuneration report of the Integration Joint Board.
The top of the page picture is of Dumbarton Town Centre, which is wrecked and falling down despite £20 million having been granted to the council under the Tories’ “levelling up” fund.