Oink. Oink. Move over and make room at the trough. We all want a share of this largess coming the way of our Senedd members and elected county councillors.

Councillor pay is set to rise again by more than £1,000 per year from next April for the third year in a row, with a draft report suggesting a move to taking the basic salary of all members to more than £21,000 despite the increasing pressure on councils to cut services and raise council tax in a bid to balance the books.

The basic pay of a county councillor in Ceredigion, Powys, Gwynedd and Pembrokeshire will rise by 6.4 per cent - more than £1,000 a year - from £19,771 to the new figure of £21,044 from 31 March 2026 if the recommendations in a draft report from the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru are accepted following a consultation.

Last year, councillor’s pay rose by more than £1,000, when it jumped to £19,771 from £18,666. It suggests the more than £1,000 a year pay lift for next year on the back of a rise of £1,000 last year, the year before that, and a 17 per cent hike in salary for all councillors for 2020 in a bid to bring councillor pay in line with average earnings in order to attract a wider range of candidates to fill the roles.

In 2019, a county councillor took home £13,868 a year for carrying out their duties.

If that’s not bad enough, the Independent Remuneration Board of the Senedd has confirmed that MSs’ pay will rise in line with the Welsh Average Earnings Index. With last year’s index at around 6 per cent, this would mean a further £4,500 increase on top of the £4,300 rise awarded in 2025.

It means backbench MSs’ salaries will have climbed by nearly £9,000 in just two years – a 12 per cent increase – reaching around £80,900. There are simar rises for all senior ministers.

Where did the rest of us go wrong?

It’s a pity that the bodies making these recommendations didn’t ask the rest of us who live in the real world, who struggle to pay bills. And higher taxes to fund feeding time at the public trough.