Councillors will have part of their allowance taken away if they fail to attend enough training events.

Braintree Council is proposing reducing its basic allowance for councillors from £4,491 per year to £4,116 per year.

The remaining £375 will then only be paid to councillors based on their attendance at evening training events throughout the year.

Any councillor who attends more than 75 per cent of the nine annual courses will receive the full £375 payment.

The payout will then operate on a sliding scale, with anyone attending fewer than ten per cent of events receiving no additional allowance at all.

The proposals will be voted on at a full council meeting on Wednesday.

If approved, the new rules will come into force from July 2015.

Topics covered by core training sessions include public health, risk management, economic development, working with parishes and commercial and domestic waste.

Councillor Joanne Beavis, who chairs the working group which came up with the proposals, said: “Attendance is quite good, but members wondered if we could do more to get people coming along.

“It is an incentive and a way of getting councillors thinking about training.

“Members don’t know it all and things are so fast moving - these meetings are opportunities for officers to get together with members to engage in specific areas.”