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As RAAC homeowners continue to face disputed valuations, financial losses and the refusal of additional assistance, questions are being raised about the timing and scale of pay increases awarded to senior councillors and the Council’s Chief Executive.
RAAC-affected homeowners in Tillicoultry are being told that Clackmannanshire Council cannot provide additional financial assistance towards the purchase of their properties.
Yet over the past 18 months, substantial increases have been awarded to some of the Council’s most senior elected members and officers.
The contrast is uncomfortable.
Homeowners facing potentially devastating losses are being told that there is no more money available to improve their position, while the remuneration of those responsible for overseeing the Council has increased significantly.
This does not, of course, mean that councillors' salaries could simply be transferred to RAAC homeowners. Nor does it mean that nationally determined pay awards can simply be cancelled or redirected by Clackmannanshire Council.
But it does raise a legitimate question about priorities, value for money and whether every possible avenue has genuinely been explored to provide a fairer settlement for families who have already suffered years of financial and emotional hardship.
Senior councillors receive increases of more than 40 per cent
In March 2025, it was reported that senior councillors in Clackmannanshire were to receive pay increases of more than 40 per cent following a national review of councillor remuneration.
The changes were recommended by the Scottish Local Authorities Remuneration Committee (SLARC) and approved and funded by the Scottish Government.
Under the new arrangements, Council Leader Cllr Ellen Forson’s salary increased by 40.7 per cent, from £35,580 to £50,063.
The Provost and eight senior councillors with additional responsibilities saw their remuneration rise to £37,547.25, while other councillors' remuneration increased by just over 20 per cent to £25,982.
The changes were justified nationally on the basis that councillor pay had become a barrier to people entering local government, with SLARC having examined the responsibilities and demands placed upon elected members.
That argument can be understood.
The role of a councillor carries significant responsibilities, and attracting people from different economic and professional backgrounds into public life is important.
But the issue for RAAC homeowners is not whether councillors deserve to be paid.
It is whether, against the backdrop of a major housing crisis and significant financial losses being experienced by local families, the Council has demonstrated the same urgency in finding financial solutions for those homeowners as it has in implementing remuneration increases for those overseeing the Council.
The Council Leader's increase
The scale of the increase for the Council Leader is particularly striking.
Cllr Ellen Forson's remuneration rose from £35,580 to £50,063 — an increase of more than £14,000 a year.
This was not a decision unique to Clackmannanshire Council. The increase arose from a national review and Scottish Government-approved arrangements.
Nevertheless, Cllr Forson is now the political leader of a Council that has been unable to provide additional financial assistance to homeowners who have been dealing with the consequences of RAAC for years.
For those homeowners, the figures inevitably invite comparison.
A potential additional payment of £10,000–£15,000 per homeowner was discussed with the UK RAAC Campaign Group during the period when the Council was exploring whether it could use its own resources to assist affected residents.
Homeowners were asked to wait while that possibility was explored.
The Council ultimately concluded that it could not provide additional financial assistance.
The question therefore becomes:
Was every possible option genuinely explored before homeowners were told that no further assistance was available?
The Chief Executive's £32,000 increase
The issue becomes even more striking when the remuneration of the Council's Chief Executive is considered.
In November 2025, the Alloa Advertiser reported that Nikki Bridle, Clackmannanshire Council's Chief Executive, was due to receive a £32,000 annual pay increase following a national review of local authority chief executives' pay.
The reported increase would take her salary from £133,530 to approximately £165,755.
The national review covered the four smallest Scottish councils and resulted in increases of up to 24 per cent for chief executives.
The arrangement was agreed nationally through COSLA and ALACE rather than being a salary increase invented by Clackmannanshire Council itself. The wider rationale was that competitive remuneration was required to attract and retain senior leadership in local government.
Clackmannanshire Council's own website confirms that Nikki Bridle is its Chief Executive and describes the role as providing leadership, vision and strategic direction for the Council.
Again, this is not an argument that the Chief Executive's salary could simply have been handed to RAAC homeowners.
It is a question about public confidence and priorities.
A homeowner who has lost tens of thousands of pounds in property value could reasonably ask why a Council which says it cannot find additional financial assistance is simultaneously operating within a national system in which its senior leadership remuneration has increased by tens of thousands of pounds.
And this comes after a 13 per cent council tax increase
The timing is particularly difficult for residents to ignore.
The pay increases came against the background of significant increases in Council Tax.
In 2025, Clackmannanshire residents faced a 13 per cent Council Tax increase, one of the highest increases in Scotland at the time.
Indeed, the Alloa Advertiser reported that councillor Denis Coyne questioned whether the remuneration changes would be well received given the “recent events”, including the Council Tax increase.
The same financial pressures are being experienced by ordinary residents who are now being asked to absorb the consequences of RAAC.
For affected homeowners, the contrast is even sharper.
They have been paying mortgages, insurance and other costs while dealing with properties affected by RAAC.
Some have faced reduced valuations.
Some have received offers that they believe do not adequately reflect their losses.
Others have seen offers change substantially.
And the Council has ultimately told them that no additional financial assistance can be provided.
What happened to the proposed fixed payment?
This brings us back to one of the central issues in the RAAC campaign.
Following a meeting in October involving homeowners, Council officers and councillors and the then Housing Minister Mairi McAllan, homeowners understood that the Council would investigate whether it could provide a fixed payment from its own resources.
This was not intended to be a Scottish Government grant.
The proposal was that the Council could potentially set aside funds from its own budgets to provide some recognition of the financial losses suffered by homeowners.
In a subsequent conversation, Kevin Wells, Director for Place & Economy, indicated to Wilson Chowdhry that a figure in the region of £10,000–£15,000 per homeowner was being considered.
The Council therefore appeared, at that stage, to be exploring whether it could find a way to provide additional assistance.
Homeowners were asked to wait.
They did.
Yet they continued to incur financial costs during that waiting period.
Eventually, the Council stated that it had undertaken a thorough review and exploration of available funding options but was unable to provide additional financial assistance towards the purchase of their properties.
The question remains:
What happened to the proposal?
£817,333 in Scottish Government funding adds another question
The situation has now been further complicated by information obtained by RAAC homeowner Owain Carter through a Freedom of Information request.
The Scottish Government confirmed on 9 July 2026 that £817,333 had been approved through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme for voids remediation works involving Council-owned properties in three Tillicoultry blocks.
The funding relates to:
- 35–51 High Street
- 6–22 Park Street
- 75–97 Chappelle Crescent
It is important to repeat that this is not a homeowner compensation grant.
There is no evidence that the £817,333 could simply have been distributed among affected homeowners.
The funding is specifically for remediation of Council-owned properties.
However, the disclosure raises questions about the wider financial circumstances in which the Council was considering its own fixed payment to homeowners.
According to information obtained by the UK RAAC Campaign Group, the Council had knowledge of the funding from around March 2026.
During the same period, the campaign was repeatedly contacting the Council seeking information about funding and possible financial assistance.
The Council therefore needs to explain the chronology.
What did it know?
When did it know it?
What financial discussions were taking place?
And what happened to the separate proposal for a Council-funded fixed payment?
The issue is not “pay the homeowners with councillors' salaries”
It is important not to reduce this debate to the simplistic argument that councillors and officers should take pay cuts and hand the money to RAAC homeowners.
That is not what is being argued.
The councillor remuneration increases were nationally determined and funded through arrangements established by the Scottish Government.
The Chief Executive's salary increase was also part of a national framework agreed through COSLA and ALACE.
The issue is one of proportion and priorities.
If a Council can operate within a system that recognises the need to increase remuneration substantially for senior political and managerial roles, homeowners are entitled to ask why a family facing a catastrophic property loss cannot receive a modest additional payment when the Council itself had previously been exploring one.
If the Council says there is genuinely no money available, homeowners deserve to understand precisely what that means.
Does it mean no money can legally be used?
No money can be identified?
No money has been allocated?
Or simply that the Council has decided that providing further assistance is not a priority?
Those are very different things.
The public deserves to know what “no money available” actually means
For homeowners, the phrase “no additional financial assistance is available” is not sufficiently detailed.
They need to know:
- What funding sources were examined?
- What Council reserves or budgets were considered?
- Was a fixed payment formally costed?
- Was the previously discussed £10,000–£15,000 figure assessed?
- What advice did the Council's finance team provide?
- Were alternative funding arrangements considered?
- What financial benefit does the Council obtain from acquiring and subsequently remediating the properties?
- Were those financial consequences considered when determining what could fairly be offered to homeowners?
These questions are particularly important given the substantial public expenditure associated with senior Council remuneration.
Fairness matters
RAAC homeowners are not asking for special treatment.
They are asking for recognition of the extraordinary circumstances in which they have found themselves.
They did not choose to have RAAC in their properties.
They did not cause the loss in value.
They did not create the uncertainty.
They did not choose to spend years paying costs associated with properties they could not properly use or sell at normal market value.
They have simply been left to deal with the consequences.
Against that background, the Council needs to demonstrate that it has genuinely exhausted every reasonable avenue for achieving a fair outcome.
That includes being transparent about the funding it has received, the resources available to it, the financial consequences of acquiring affected properties and the options considered before concluding that homeowners deserve no further assistance.
Wilson Chowdhry: “The issue is priorities and transparency”
Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the UK RAAC Campaign Group, said:
“I am not suggesting that councillors should simply give up their salaries or that the Chief Executive's pay should be handed to homeowners. That would be a simplistic argument and would ignore the fact that many of these pay arrangements were determined nationally.
“The question is much more fundamental: what does the Council mean when it tells RAAC homeowners that there is no additional financial assistance available?
“We have homeowners who have suffered enormous financial losses and who have been carrying mortgage, insurance and other costs for years. At one stage, the Council was exploring a fixed payment from its own resources, and Kevin Wells indicated to me that a figure of around £10,000–£15,000 was being considered.
“Homeowners were asked to wait while this was explored. They waited. They continued to incur costs. They were repeatedly told that discussions were taking place.
“Yet the Council ultimately concluded that it could not provide additional assistance.
“At the same time, senior councillor remuneration has increased by more than 40 per cent in some cases, and the Chief Executive's salary is being increased by more than £32,000.
“I recognise that these increases arise from national processes and that they cannot simply be redirected to homeowners. But it is perfectly legitimate for residents to question priorities when they are being told that there is nothing more that can be done for families facing devastating property losses.
“If there genuinely is no lawful or financially responsible way for Clackmannanshire Council to provide further assistance, then explain exactly why. Tell homeowners what was considered, what was rejected and why.
“What I cannot accept is homeowners being told simply that all options have been exhausted when we still have unanswered questions about the proposed fixed payment, the Council's financial position and the wider funding arrangements surrounding Council-owned RAAC properties.
“These homeowners are not asking for charity. They are asking for fairness.
“The Council must demonstrate that it has applied the same determination to finding a solution for RAAC families as it has applied to resolving its own financial and remuneration arrangements.”
A question of public confidence
There is a legitimate argument that elected representatives and senior officers should be properly remunerated.
There is also a legitimate argument that public bodies must be able to recruit and retain capable senior leadership.
But public confidence depends on more than whether individual salary increases are technically justified.
It depends on whether residents believe that the people making decisions understand the financial pressures being experienced by the communities they serve.
For RAAC homeowners, that confidence has already been severely damaged.
They have endured years of uncertainty.
They have seen valuations disputed and offers change.
They have been asked to wait while funding discussions took place.
They understood that a Council-funded fixed payment was being explored.
They have now been told that no additional financial assistance is available.
And they are still waiting for a full explanation of what happened.
The question is therefore not whether councillors or senior officers deserve to be paid.
It is whether RAAC homeowners deserve better.
After everything these families have endured, the Council should be able to demonstrate — transparently and convincingly — that every reasonable option for a fair settlement has genuinely been explored.
Because if there is money for leadership, there must at least be answers for the families who have carried the cost of this crisis.
Together, we continue to stand with RAAC families and campaign for a fair resolution.
The RAAC crisis is not just about concrete—it is about accountability.
And we are far from finished.
📧 Email: wilson@aasecurity.co.uk
📢 Twitter/X: https://x.com/WilsonChowdhry
#RAACScandal #Petition2113 #ScottishParliament #SupportRAACVictims #EndTheSilence
