30-05-2025
Perth and Kinross Council expenses: What did your councillor claim last year?
Perth and Kinross councillors ran up a £32,000 expenses bill last year.
Councillors can claim for travel and other costs connected to their official duties.
The 2024-2025 total was shared between the 40 serving members, and two former councillors.
The highest expenses total – £4,750.50 – went to Perth and Kinross Provost Xander McDade.
The council's SNP deputy leader Eric Drysdale did not claim a penny.
Nor did independent councillor Colin Stewart and Conservative Crawford Reid, one of the two who stepped down last year, sparking a by-election in September.
There were no overseas trips, and no claims for accommodation or meals.
And only one payment was made in connection with training and conferences – £475 for Liberal Democrat licensing board convener Peter Barrett.
Perth and Kinross Council leader Grant Laing's expenses amounted to £504.90 for the year.
The SNP councillor says that mostly paid for travel to an event in London, where he was pitching for investment in Perth.
And he puts his comparatively low claim down to public transport and advancing years.
'I'm in the office 95% of the time and I travel by bus,' Mr Laing told The Courier.
'I'm fortunate with the bus service where I stay. And I use my bus pass. I'm 63.
'It's not just that it's free,' he added.
'People will sit down and speak to you on the bus. You get a good sense of what's happening on the ground.'
Provost Xander McDade attends a large number of events in his role as the civic head of Perth and Kinross.
As an independent councillor in the Highland ward, he also has further to travel than other members.
However, his £4,750.50 expenses compare favourably to his predecessor's.
The oldest breakdown of councillors' expenses on the Perth and Kinross Council website is for 2018-19 when then provost Dennis Melloy totalled £18,951.50.
Ten other councillors ran up expenses running into thousands of pounds last year.
They include John Duff, another Highland ward councillor and leader of the opposition Tory group, whose expenses came to £3,264.60.
The total bill for Perth and Kinross councillors' salaries and allowances amounted to £1,007,533.29 in 2024-25.
