Political discourse in the UK has frequently focused on "empowering communities", everyone from the Co-operative Party to the BNP speaks of it today. Whilst the Tories speak of "community groups" and charities running services and taking decisions (seemingly without reference to the rest of the community through democratic and other consultation methods) and interestingly the Co-operative Party frequently takes a similar view, talking about handing over communal assets and even healthcare and utility production and distribution networks to "community bodies", which could potentially be utterly unaccountable. Likewise in some quarters there has been great enthusiasm for "local binding referendums", with the Tories going so far as to promise communities that they will introduce powers to veto council tax rises and property developments.
The problem to my mind with all of these ideas (whilst they have their merits in places) is that they do not actually empower communities, rather they empower those individuals who can be bothered to get involved with community organisation and politics. Voting on local issues is already confined overwhelmingly to those at the upper end of the socio-economic spectrum and even there involvement it is patchy. There is no need to paint a picture of the steady erosion of local government powers by the forces of the every stronger marketised and marketising state, seeking homogeneity and subsidised competition, it is merely a brute fact, in the decline of municipal power and the steady undermining of communities. the end result is that the bulk of the citizenry are utterly alienated from their localities and their public affairs. As far as I can see community groups alone will not redress this. Community groups by their very nature will be dominated by those who already have the loudest voices and know best how to get what they want. The same is true for local referendums. Turnout in mayoral referendums, where they have happened outside of election season, has usually hit the giddying heights of 15-20%, in the Middlesbrough it was 9%, when Stoke-on-Trent voted to abolish the much debased position of mayor the votes were: 21,231 for, 14,591 against, out of a potential electorate of about 170,000! Citizens (at least 6 have to sign a petition) already have the power to call for a "non-binding" referendum on any matter under the 1972 Local Government Act, however, it is a power seldom if ever used, which would suggest that the demand isn't really there. As we have seen even if a more heavy-duty ability to trigger binding referendums was introduced, the only people who would be interested are the likely culprits. I can foresee all sorts of problems arising from low turnouts and lack of political will. Tory controlled councils being snookered by trade union efforts and Labour councils being shimmied by Tory activism, with LibDem councils as ever being skewered in the middle and those in NOC being paralysed by inaction as "independent groups" and minor parties are suddenly gifted a major new card. As in the USA we will find that referendums are hardly ever triggered by a true "citizens initiative", rather by the same vested interests that "direct democracy" is supposed to thwart.
Where does that leave us? It is hard to argue against the idea that the UK has become over centralised and that this over centralisation is damaging civic society and weakening the ties of consent, accountability and consultation which enable democratic government to function and which remain its greatest strength. The attempts by state backed QUANGOs to engage in "consultation" are at best laughable at worst an insult to the idea. Part of the problem is education, the great mass of the population; whilst they may moan, are just not used to be being asked their opinions on matters of governance and civic and social improvement. This is in part due to a lack of ready information, including comparative case stories and data, as well as a genuine lack of "education for participation" and most crucially time and will. This would imply to me that out traditions of representative government still have "a lot going for them". After all what is a councillor if not a mini-representative empowered by their community to take decisions in the best interests of, and according to the will of that community? That does not mean that there is no scope for increased community activism and control, of course there is, rather, we need to temper it, as well always have in the past, with representatives elected to make decisions with the experts employed and/or selected by them to make those decisions. This does not preclude the involvement of the wider community in decision making and management, rather it provides a solid platform upon which it can be built.
The Coalition government is pursuing an agenda that will hopefully lead to electoral reform for the Commons and PR for the Lords, it is not hard to imagine that come 2013/14 we might see STV for the European elections. Tories hate lists as much as LibDems do. However, one crucial area in which electoral reform appears to be making little progress is in local government. Not only electoral reform mind, but political reform more generally. It would be a relatively simple matter for instance to extend the "recall bill" currently going through Parliament so that it applies to all elected representatives and officials. After all a quick look at the news, a glance through Private Eye, or a punt across the blogosphere will confirm that incompetence, sleaze, abuse of trust and good old fashioned corruption are far from confined to Whitehall and the Palace of Westminster. Of course any recall measure will have to be far further reaching than the rather tame measure proposed by the government. Instead of insisting that representatives are found guilty of "serious wrongdoing" (Nick Clegg, speaking on political reform July 2010) before recalling, we should instead set a threshold, say 10% of electors, and arrange a recall election if more than 10% (around 7,000 electors for a Westminster constituency, about 5,000 for a devolved legislature and between 2,000 and 200 in a local government ward) sign a petition calling for the recall of their representative. This will ensure that whilst recalls are not used frivolously, all elected individuals are kept on their toes, knowing that they are accountable to the electorate every day rather than once every four years.
Local government electoral reform, however, is the best way to ensure that council chambers better represent their communities and develop civic society. At the moment you would be hard pressed to find a Labour councillor in Cornwall or a Tory in Liverpool (that's because there aren't any). I find it impossible to believe that the range of councillors in most of the UK's local authorities, at all levels, whilst they no doubt often do a sterling job representing their ward's residents, match the political views of the residents of the wards they serve and share their values and aspirations. We must note that in England 70% of councillors are men and around 60% are over 60, in Wales 80% are men and nearer to 70% are over 60, this contrasts strongly with the country's demographic situation where women slightly outnumber men and the average age of the electorate is 45. Noble exceptions to this rule exist in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the STV has been introduced for all local elections. In local government where competent management and stewardship far more than legislative dynamism (which would remain the case even under the most radical power shifting proposals) the arguments about "weak" rule produced by moving to a proportional electoral system do not matter, consensus decision making, nine times out of ten, produces better results. Likewise at the moment somewhere between a third and half of the local authorities in the country are in a state of "No Overall Control" (some like Weymouth&Portland DC in Dorset have been so since 1973) meaning that different political groupings have to work together to govern. Likewise, a great many councils are rather apolitical in that party politics frequently takes a back seat with regards to proceedings which is how governance should be. In a similar vein the success of groups of independents like the Boston By-Pass Party, and the North Lindsey Independent Group and single issue parties like Wye Forest's Health Concern (which succeeded in sending an MP to Parliament between 2001-2010, as well as running Wye Forest District Council from 2002-2006, in alliance with the continuation Liberal Party), coupled with the increased electoral success of the Green Party and the LibDem near parity with Labour in terms of councillor numbers, goes to show that a vibrant independent political culture is sprouting into existence across the UK, reflecting a form of new localism, despite the fact that little progress has been made on devolving power thus far. This however, will change when the Department for Communities and Local Government changes its ring-fencing regulations and allows councils more control over housing policy and economic development, including industrial and environmental policy. the biggest change, however, will come with NHS reform which will see local government handed responsibility for public health and given a crucial role in overseeing "commissioning boards", ironically at a time when education policy appears to be being ever more clawed in by central government.
It is important therefore, that local people are able to choose the council that they want. At the moment this doesn't happen. For a start many wards, especially in rural areas are still uncontested, in 2003 600 wards up for election saw no election because only one person stood. Likewise there are a great many wards (and for that matter councils) which are one party fiefs. Hundreds of county divisions have only returned councillors affiliated to one party since their creation in the 1880s and 1890s and most multi-member wards which elected members of parish, district and single-tier councils send 2 or 3 affiliates of the same party, even though in some cases only 30% of those who'd chosen to vote chose to vote for the candidate of the winning party. This situation is slightly better on councils which have chosen to adopt the Single-Non-Transferable-Vote, this sees 3 (or in some cases 2) councillors elected at a time, the elector has a number of votes equal to the number of seats. This system has a number of advantages, for a start it allows for a degree of voter choice, (although sometimes as in the case of Barking&Dagenham this doesn't work, in 2010 B&D elected 51 Labour Party members to fill 51 seats), it is not unusual for local authority wards elected under SNTV to have representatives belonging to different parties. Far more common than wards which elect using the good old FTPT "thirds system" first introduced by the Municipal Boroughs Act of 1835, it also avoids the problem many county councils have where one party wins a landslide, following the elections in June 2009 only one "shire" county council, Cumbria, isn't governed by a Tory group with a majority of less than 8 or 9 (Cumbria is in NOC with a Tory-Lab administration). By contrast many wards which elect to second, third or single tier councils, return members of different persuasions. For instance in rural areas, it is quite common for wards to return 1 Tory and 1 LibDem or 2 Tories and an Independent, in urban areas you might see 2 LibDems and a Green councillor being returned or 2 Labour and a BNP, this encourages competition and encourages councillors not to be complacent, forcing them to listen to the electorate. SNTV councils also enjoy higher turnout at elections, councils elected by thirds tend to have average turnouts in the 30-35% range, by contrast "all out councils" see average turnouts in the 35-45% range. This is because instead of having to trapse out to the polls every 3 years out of 4 following a really anaemic campaign by the local parties, because everybody knows that with only a third of the seats up for election control isn't going to shift, so things won't be radically different in terms of council composition on Friday Morning than it was on Thursday. For instance in Birmingham both the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat parties made heavy gains at Labour's expense at every council election for 5 years between 1999 and 2004, however, it was only in 2004 that Labour lost overall control, despite the fact that "the writing had been on the wall" for at least 3 years prior to that. In a similar vein there seems little chance that Labour will be able to retake the council until 2013 at the earliest which gives the current Con-LD alliance 3 years of grace to do as they please, whilst the rest of us snooze. By contrast in Bournemouth in 2007 the 30 odd strong LibDem group that had run the city for the best part of the last decade was reduced to a rump of 7 in just one day, with the city's Tory Party suddenly catapulted into power. Their abject failure to govern and a set of sleaze scandals, mean that it looks likely that the Conservatives will be thrown out of power next year in the same manner that they entered it. Voters 1, troughing councillors and corrupt party and civic bureaucracy 0.
It seems therefore that whatever electoral system we select for council elections it should ideally fulfil several criteria:
*It must allow electors to vote the way they wish not the way they feel they have to, to keep out another candidate.
*It must allow for real voter choice between candidates.
*It must provide incentives for councillors to listen to; and work on behalf of, their electors.
*It should as far as possible try to reflect in ward boundaries natural communities which people identify with.
*It should make it hard for one party to monopolise power and reflect the way that people actually voted, no more instance of the group with the most votes getting less seats than a group with less ballots cast in their favour.
*It should allow for the representation of minority parties and independents.
Any change should ideally be coupled with more extensive "root and branch" reform of local government, with greater autonomy in both action and fiscal powers leading to a greater ability to shape communities in the manner in which people wish them. It is also important to remember the importance of projects such as the opening up of council data current being championed by the Department of Local Government and Communities. This will not improve governance overnight, and if it encourages new kinds of secrecy, will not be a silver bullet, any more than community groups or referenda are. However, giving people vital data about the services which matter to them will do more to empower people to engage with the authorities than any exercise in "choice" yet attempted by the powers that be ever has. It also has an important societal function in that it will strengthen the ability of the local press (and bloggers) to report going-ons within the locality, much aiding the important work which the media does in a free society, as well as strengthening the hand of community groups and voluntary organisations, as well as individual citizens in their dealings with the municipal authorities. It is also important that electors are granted the powers of recall outlined already so that they can keep councillors "on their toes" every day rather than just on election day every few years and thus encourage councillors to make decisions which are actually in the interests of their electorate and not to engage in actions which may be considered sleazy or corrupt. It is also important that power is devolved to the lowest possible level. The days of 2 tiered counties are numbered, the future belongs to smaller more agile unitary authorities competent within their sphere. By the same virtue instead of empowering individual "community groups" to dominate local areas we must invigorate "parish council" structures to run affairs in our major cities at ward level, to provide a degree of autonomous governance for our small towns and cities currently smothered by district and large unitary councils and to give voice and the ability to engage in effective collective action to our rural communities and localities. This councils must be more than the arbiters of flower boxes and black and gold painted trash cans, the custodians of the TIC Office and the summer fete, instead they must be empowered and equipped with what is necessary to grab grants, support business, develop and implement planning and local development policy, run park&ride schemes as well as provide utilities such as broadband and renewable power, be granted licensing powers, the right to make by-laws and to levy taxes All so that communities can become self-governing, whilst top tier local authorities concentrate on the bigger picture, on education, on social services, on law&order, on libraries and leisure centres, highways, economic/environmental development, adult education and healthcare. Yes, electoral reform is just a small but crucial part of the battle...
It is of course a part of the battle that it is vital to win, if councils become better at doing what they do, then it will be easier to argue that more power be handed down to the local level. Local government electoral reform would actually be very easy to implement, involving just a few amendments to the current "Parliamentary Elections and Constituencies Bill". If an amended bill was to pass through Parliament and if the referendum next May was answered in the affirmative, then AV could be in use for council elections on those council which elected by thirds or which have single member wards as early as 2012, with the county council elections in 2013 being conducted almost entirely under the scheme... AV however, does not meet many of our tests. Whilst it keeps councillors on their toes, it does do anything to encourage greater proportionality and produces its own distortions. It can tighten a party's grip upon a ward and thus not lead to the desirable competition between councillors which, as we have seen, is so desirable. Likewise unless we promote single member wards AV does not lead us towards a sensible 3 or 4 year electoral cycle, like the other alternatives to FPTP and its multi-member derivative SNTV. As such AV does not posses the qualities we desire in a local government electoral system. It does however, have its uses, I am personally opposed to elected mayors, however, the alternative vote is a vastly superior method of electing them (used in most other countries which have them) as opposed to its poor relation the supplementary vote, which is what we use for our mayoral contests.
More proportional systems are, however, not necessarily more difficult to introduce. Whilst an STV clause cannot be inserted into the current bill without radically altering it, introducing STV would not actually be that disruptive to the current pattern of local government. Whilst county councils (which I would like to see abolished) would require new 3 member divisions in place of the mostly single member ones which exist at present, thereby precluding the introduction of STV for those elections before 2017, or 2021 at the earliest, it would be very easy to convert elections to London and Metropolitan borough councils, as well as most district and unitary councils which almost all return 3 (or at 2) councillors from each ward to STV, the challenge would just be lining up the change so that there wasn't a bizarre overlap or gap between the end of FTPT/SNTV and the introduction of STV. STV would meet all of our criteria, being a system which allows people to choose between candidates including those from the same party. It allows voters to rank lower politicians who "fail them", whilst promoting individuals who whilst they might not be from their favoured party are deemed to be the better person to represent their views. As such ineffective, poor councillors are weeded out. Likewise even if wards are small it is much harder for one party to gain control of the council chamber and thus push through their plans and agenda regardless of the views of others and the possibility that those plans will not work, won't prove cost effective and will do nothing to raise the standard of living enjoyed by the community which is affected by the project. As such the important scrutiny and oversight function of councillors will be much enhanced and the need to broker plural solutions will be promoted ensuring the all points of views are heard and all options considered. Hopefully the fact that all councillors are accountable will encourage more humility amongst councillors and provide an incentive for all of them to develop a "listening ear" and conduct case work and organise initiatives to improve their ward. A sense of community will also be fostered by the fact that STV, unlike some other forms of PR, retains a constituency link and allows wards to be drawn in such a way that they reflect real communities, as opposed to statistically satisfactory entities. As such it is important that we press for the introduction of STV for all council elections as soon as possible. However, it is important that councils are offered a choice. Since 1933 non county councils have been able to choose their own electoral cycle and between FPTP and SNTV. This should be allowed to continue, all councils should have the choice of deciding to elect "all out" every 2,3 or 4 years, although the date of election should remain fixed as the first week in May (either a Thursday as is the case now, or more preferable to my mind, a Saturday or a Sunday). I also feel that councils with less than 100,000 electors, which govern areas of less than 150 square kilometres (about 45 square miles) should be allowed to adopt full open list PR using either D'Hondt or Sainte-Langue. Its fits all of the criteria and at the parish and very small unitary/district level makes perfect sense, in that with 40-50 odd councillors at the upper bound of the limit you should be able to represent most opinions within the community effectively if elected at large, provided there are significant sub-council bodies to represent people at a micro-communal level. Open list PR has the advantage for small authorities of being relatively cheap and simple to administer relative to STV and the evidence from countries like Germany, Sweden and Finland where it is used for district and sub-district elections would suggest that it does not harm the chances of independents. However, it becomes utterly impractical on a large scale, where it risks either alienating people from their councillors due to the size of ward and the inherently impersonal nature of lists or else it runs the risk of turning into SNTV, with very small wards blunting proportionality (note the degree of proportionality in Austrian or Spanish parliamentary elections despite their use of list PR) and the fact that you make only one mark limiting voter choice. As such STV remains the favoured choice, but other systems can be utilised so as maximise council's ability to choose a system that suits their electors and their communities.
There is one final consideration. At the start of this article I poured cold water upon the idea of referendums. I do have an alternative, which has many of the benefits of participatory democracy with few of its potential distortions. Parish meetings. Ever since 1894 right across England many people's lowest tier of government has been the parish meeting. This is a meeting at which anyone (who is an elector) can turn up discuss an issue affecting the area and vote on it. Some are non-binding, although they doesn't mean utterly without effect. Whilst others are actually the decision making body for the area and provide a touch of true grass roots democracy, Swiss or American style. Obviously we cannot replace local councils with open air or church hall meetings. However, we can utilise this sub or complementary to parish; form of democracy so as to enable everyone to have a say in running things, even in urban areas. Obviously such bodies wouldn't make technical decisions regarding things like light bulbs in street lamps or ones like whether or not to re-roof the community centre, however, they could have a valuable role to play in deciding whether to allow Tesco or Whetherspoons into town or where to sight a new play area. The more you ponder it the more the vistas open up!
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