An independent panel is being set up to review the allowances paid to Oxford city councillors.

The move follows a national change in the law which allows local authorities much greater freedom in the scale and range of allowances.

Oxford City Council last year spent £79,692 on members' allowances - just overabout £8,000 more than the figure spent in 1996/7.

The amounts paid range from more than £3,000 for Labour's Susanna Pressel and for Maureen Christian, deputy leader of the council, to £461 to Richard Davy.

City councillors voted themselves an increase in members' allowances worth about £300 a year earlier this year.

They bumped up the attendance allowance for meetings from £20 to £22 and also increased the basic annual allowance from £141 a year to £288 a year. Councillors are currently only allowed to claim one attendance allowance per day. Those in leading positions, for example the council leader and committee chairmen, are also entitled to a special responsibilities allowance.

But even with t he recent increase The city council still pays the lowest members allowances of any local authority in Oxfordshire.

The new panel, set up by the city council, will have the job of scrutinising the existing system of costs paid to members.

It will also make recommendations to the council on the relevance of different types of allowances.

It would be able to make recommendations on the amount which should be paid for each allowance.

The new body is likely to consist of representatives from Oxford Brookes University, Unipart or Rover, the media and the Oxford Council for Voluntary Action.

It will invite a variety of people to give evidence, including past and present councillors, officers, members of the public and trade unions.

Until April 1995, councillors' allowances were strictly controlled by national regulations. A change in the law means that local authorities now have a wide range of options and can determine their own level of payments to members.

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