Ministers to remove annual fee payable by councillors as 'data controllers'

In a written statement to Parliament, Local Government Minister Kris Hopkins said local authorities would instead undertake the notification process itself as part of their local authority-wide registration. Individual councillors would then be exempt from the fee.

“This will remove an effective ‘tax on volunteering’,” Hopkins said.

Officials have been asked to draft the necessary secondary legislation in purdah, with a view to laying the amending legislation early in the next Parliament.