Here’s the full news article –
The voters of Greater Manchester paid more than £2.2m to throw out congestion charge plans in last month’s referendum.
And the returning officer, who spent 26 days in the area, was paid a £10,000 bonus on top of the agreed £600 a day as a reward for his “oversight, accessibility and overall accountability for the referendum process”.
The costs are part of the overall £24.1m bill to be shared by Rochdale and the nine other districts of Greater Manchester for the aborted Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) bid which was killed off by the overwhelming No vote in the poll.
Each of the 10 local authorities has been invoiced directly by Electoral Reform Services for the £1.7m costs of producing, distributing, and counting postal votes, including postage costs. Another £500,000 of central referendum costs — including the returning officer’s fees — will be divided between the 10 councils according to their populations.
Elections expert Sir Neil McIntosh will receive £25,600 plus expenses for his services as returning officer. More than £51,000 was spent on staff for Sir Neil and another £10,365 on travel and subsistence for him and his staff.
After the result, Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon made it clear that without congestion charging, there would be no TIF money for Greater Manchester. But figures produced by Manchester City Council chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein for council leaders show that a large part of the £24 million cost went on justifying plans to civil servants.
TIF activities of dozens of officials and consultants were halted a week after the referendum result, when town hall leaders formally agreed to abandon the process. They are now trying to persuade the Government to rescue some of the projects which were dependent on a Yes vote.
One AGMA insider said: “Greater Manchester has done a lot of work which the Department can now use to test the plans of other areas. There is a feeling that we deserve some recognition for that.”
