Cllr Kiansumba
A councillor who received £13,500 in allowances saw her career ended after failing to attend a meeting in six months.
Michelle Kiansumba (pictured) was paid this sum between March 6, 2008 and March 10, 2010 when she attended only nine meetings out of a total of 56 which took place in this time. The last time she turned up for a meeting was on September 15, 2009.
A council spokesman yesterday confirmed Mrs Kiansumba no longer represents residents in Luton’s South Ward because of the council’s rules and regulations which state any councillor who fails to attend a council or committee meeting for six months automatically bars themselves from the role.
Mrs Kiansumba was paid a £6,000 standard allowance in the financial year April 2008 to March 2009, to which she was entitled as she was ill.
She also received a £7,500 allowance for the 2009/10 financial year.
The majority of meetings which Mrs Kiansumba failed to attend were for the following committees: Council, South Luton Area, Children and Young People Scrutiny, Performance, Resources and Assets Scrutiny, Social Inclusion Scrutiny and Regeneration and Citizenship Scrutiny Committee.
This follows our report in June 2009 that Mrs Kiansumba travelled to the Town Hall just twice for Luton Borough Council meetings during the year between the start of April 2008 and the end of March 2009 due to ill health.
But this did not stop the South Ward representative, who lives less than two miles away from the Town Hall in Argyll Avenue, Luton, claiming a total of £412.29 in mileage and subsistence expenses.
Only three of Luton Borough Council’s 48 members claimed more in mileage and subsistence during the same period, council leader Hazel Simmons (£806.20), Khtija Malik (£604.50), who was mayor that year, and Roy Davis (£626.84), who sits on nine internal committees and a further 18 external ones in his capacity as a council representative.
That year Mrs Kiansumba sat on four internal committees, none externally, and these expenses were on top of her £6,000 standard allowance in 2008/09.
The figures for her expense claims for 2009/10 are not available until next month.
After being present at a meeting on March 6, 2008, Mrs Kiansumba did not attend any more until September 9 that year.
Normally she would have been disqualified since she attended no meetings in six months but because of her ill health, Mrs Kiansumba was granted a three month stay of execution to take effect from September 6 at a full council meeting on July 22, 2008.
Mrs Kiansumba did not return any of our calls when we tried to contact her for a comment.
A council spokesman said: “Anyone living in South ward can always contact one of their other elected councillors – Cllr Lynda Ireland on 01582 729449 or Cllr Dave Taylor on 01582 513752 – if they have a local issue they wish to discuss.”
It is expected that residents in South ward will be invited to vote for a new ward councillor at a by-election on Thursday, May 6.
A spokesman from the Taxpayers’ Alliance said: “It is outrageous that this councillor has made this amount of money at local taxpayers’ expense without doing the job that they are meant to do.
“The council should investigate whether any steps can be taken to recover this money and action should be taken to get more committed local representatives in place in the future.”