Northumberland County Council - County councillor information

County councillor information

Northumberland County Council is made up of 67 elected councillors each representing an area of the county.

An overview of the cabinet of Northumberland County Council and details of how to contact your local councillor or attend a meeting.

Northumberland County Council is made up of 67 elected councillors.

Each councillor represents constituents within an area of Northumberland. They all meet as a full council responsible for setting the budget and the council's policy framework. Councillors also sit on a range of committees.

Click here to find your councillor or to view all 67 elected county councillors in Northumberland

Cabinet and Business Chair portfolios

The council's Cabinet and Business Chairs have a range of responsibilities, covering a number of portfolio areas.

Click here to view the Cabinet and Business chair portfolios from May 2021

Please use the links below to find out their names, contact details and responsibilities:

Cabinet

The cabinet is made up of elected councillors nominated by the leader of the council. This comprises portfolio holders, who hold specific responsibilities. At the Full Council meeting on 26 May 2021 the following appointements were made.

Below are details of the current cabinet. Find their contact details and responsibilities by clicking on their name :

Leader - Cllr Glen Sanderson
Deputy Leader - Cllr Richard Wearmouth
Adults’ Wellbeing - Cllr Wendy Pattison, with a deputy of Cllr Catherine Seymour
Community Services - Cllr Colin Horncastle, with a deputy of Cllr Christine Dunbar
Business - Cllr Wojciech Ploszaj
Children and Young People - Cllr Guy Renner-Thompson
Local Services - Cllr John Riddle
Healthy Lives - Cllr Jeff Watson
Corporate services - Deputy - Cllr Paul Scott

Business chair and civic head

The business chair, the civic head, and the deputy civic head, were annonunced at the full council meeting on 26 May 2021.

Business Chair - Cllr Barry Flux
Civic Head - Cllr Ian Hutchinson
Deputy Civic Head - Cllr Trevor Cessford

Councillors’ allowances

Each year a basic allowance is paid to each councillor.

In addition to this, a special responsibility allowance (SRA) is paid to a number of councillors, including the following, to reflect their special responsibilities over and above their role as a ward councillor:

cabinet members including the leader and deputy leader of the council
business chair and deputy business chair
chairs and vice chairs of the overview and scrutiny committees
chairs and vice chairs of other certain committees, including planning, licensing and others
opposition party leaders and party secretaries.

Allowances are set by an independent remuneration panel. All the numbers produced are gross figures with allowances being subject to tax.

The members' allowance scheme can be seen here.

You can see the details of expenses and allowances for each year from 2008 are in the documents below.

Current declarations of interest

Declarations of interest 2013 to 2017

Member conduct

The member’s code of conduct is part of the county council constitution. To view the members' code of conduct, click here.

If you make a complaint, it must be about why you think a member has not followed their code. To assist you, we have also prepared an indicative flowchart that sets out how the process works for handling complaints about elected members.

Recent decisions

County councillor vacancy

There are currently no vacancies.

Further information on becoming a councillor can be found here

Any queries should be directed to:-

Elections Office
County Hall
Morpeth
Northumberland
NE61 2EF

Tel: 01670 624811
Email: elections@northumberland.gov.uk

Details on how the members spend their annual budget for local projects.

Each county councillor has an annual £15,000 budget for schemes they can use for local projects in their area.

Progress reports are published bimonthly on the agendas of Local Area Council meetings. An annual report is published once a year.

The latest versions for 2021-22 (as at 1 July 2021) are as follows:

Details of previous years can be found here: