“Councillors on the Frontline”

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Betts]

I thank my hon. Friend for that—I think—but I will not be led down the road of discussing a debate that happened in Parliament this morning. However, I think there is a case for such training. I pointed out the major financial changes in local government that councils are having to deal with, but of course, we have to deal with those as Members of Parliament, too.

On our Committee, for example, we have tried to get more briefings from the Scrutiny Unit in Parliament, which is an excellent resource, and from the National Audit Office, which is trying to work more closely with us, so that we can understand some of the complicated technical issues—which I am sure that the Minister can explain to us, if he wishes, at any point in time. We are all trying to grapple with these issues, and I agree that training is important for us as well. It is also important that we try and reach out to potential councillors and potential candidates, and that parties and local councils work on that as well.

We looked at the barriers, why we have an unrepresentative group, and why certain people feel it is just not for them. Perhaps they would like to be a councillor, but they do not become one. Time is a factor. Flippant comments are often made, such as “Well, it’s only a part-time job, a few hours a week.” I do not think it is; the ward work alone can be demanding. Cabinet members clearly have larger time commitments, but if someone is on a scrutiny committee and they are going to do what we saw in Sunderland, where ward councillors are taking decisions through area committees and are spending money, that is also a time commitment. It is easier for retired people than it is for people who work, which is why more retired people tend to go on councils. That is a fact, but it is also a challenge and a barrier.

I remember a time in Sheffield when all the major steelworks would almost vie with each other. One would say, “We’ve got two councillors on the council”, while another would say, “We’ve got three.” They all saw giving time off as a badge of honour. I accept that it is easier for large organisations employing thousands of people to do that than it is for small businesses, but it is a challenge to try and ensure that being a councillor is an opportunity open for many people in all walks of life.

As part of our process, we talked to young people, some of whom had been councillors and had given up. One reason was that young people start off, perhaps prepared to make a sacrifice about having a job, but eventually, they have to get a job, and the employer starts saying, “I’m sorry, time off really isn’t on—well, maybe we can find you half a day every fortnight.” They cannot really do the job in that regard. We heard from a councillor—I think she was a Conservative councillor—who said she was trying to get a job, and the jobcentre told her to take the fact that she was a councillor off her CV, because if anyone saw it, they would not employ her. That is really worrying. We ought to give proper attention to that, and the Government have to address it as well.

Councils can help councillors by providing better admin and clerical assistance. Again, there is a worry that such things get squeezed and scrapped when councillors are, understandably, trying to protect front-line services from cuts. We looked at what is happening in the Ministry of Defence. We made the following recommendation:

“The Ministry of Defence is giving serious consideration to the ways in which employers can be encouraged to support military reservists. The Department for Communities and Local Government should conduct a similar review. We recommend that the Government consult on how employers can be encouraged to provide support to their staff who serve as councillors.”

We are not saying that it has to be exactly the same as the MOD, but at least if the Government were out there saying to employers, “We think this is important. We think serving as a councillor in your community is something we should encourage people to do”, having that ministerial steer would be helpful. Do a review. Work with the LGA. At least recognise it as a problem, Minister, because it is a problem, as was clearly shown in our own evidence.

I am getting towards the end of my comments. We also raised the issue of allowances. Given the press comments and ministerial responses made initially about our report, one would have thought the only thing we said was that all councillors should be paid more. Actually, we did not say that anywhere in the report. We raised the issue of allowances because it was raised with us in evidence as a problem—it was an evidence-based report; that is what Select Committee reports are. We did not recommend, as I say, that allowances should be increased. We got the evidence clearly that councillors, in some cases, were not well paid.

We did not agree with the idea of having a national rate for councillors, because we recognise the big differences in the job that councillors do in different authorities, and in the jobs that various councillors do. However, we were generally persuaded that councillors had the right to expect an appropriate level of compensation for the time and loss of earnings. Both are important; it is about the time that councillors put in, often at weekends and evenings, but it is also about the time that those in work give up, and the loss of earnings as a result, which is often a risk.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

To reflect on the speed-dating exercise that we did, the allowances came across as being a substantial sum of money. For someone who is very young, and perhaps not yet in their first job, it is a substantial payment, but for people in full-time work, the allowances were relatively modest. That is one reason why the analogy with reservists is particularly interesting.

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[Martin Vickers]

I agree that the types of organisations the hon. Gentleman mentions need to be involved in providing services and there needs to be adequate accountability. I shall come to training later in my comments, because I have certain reservations about some aspects of councillor training.

I turn to the structure of local government. Paragraph 30 is headed “Unitary authorities”. I have served in two-tier and single-tier systems, and I say unequivocally that unitary is by far the superior structure. My view, not widely shared, is that we should move to unitary authorities headed by an elected mayor, leaving, I hasten to add, parish councils as they are, because they play a vital role. A streamlined structure and an elected mayor—someone with their own mandate—who is recognisably in charge would provide a better service. Mayors could act as ambassadors for their local areas and, like Back-Bench Members, be another thorn in the side of Government, which will do no harm at all.

There are two unitary authorities in my part of the world, North Lincolnshire council and North East Lincolnshire council. I shall take North Lincolnshire council as an example, not necessarily because it is Tory controlled, but because of two recent examples of how effective councils can make a difference.

A major planning application has been grinding its way through the system for four years—the south Humber energy park by Able UK—and is now almost past its final hurdle with the Secretary of State. The local authority has handled it in an exemplary manner. It has assisted, but also taken on board fully the concerns of the local community. It held endless consultation events and, on the whole, the process was a model of how such things should be done.

More recently, in November last year, more than 500 redundancies were announced at the Kimberly-Clark factory in Barton-upon-Humber. Fortunately, the council played a major role in attracting a new business, Wren Kitchens, to the factory. There is now the possibility of 500 new jobs coming on stream over the next year, the company having initially taken on about 100 staff. Councillor Liz Redfern, leader of the council, and her team have played a major role in delivering that.

On the structure and the elections, I firmly believe in single-member wards. In Parliament, we rightly value the link between ourselves and our constituents, which is there partly because we are single Members for single constituencies. I compare our role with that of Members of the European Parliament, who are anonymous due to the list system and the vast areas they cover. There are arguments for and against all-out elections and elections by thirds.

[Mark Pawsey]

I particularly support my hon. Friend’s remarks about single-member wards. In a single-member ward, by definition, each councillor is responsible for fewer electors and the link is greater. I want to make a point in my remarks about the connection between the general public and their councillor. The general public will know their councillor in a single-member ward, but they often do not in a three-member ward.

[Martin Vickers]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I entirely agree. The link between the elected and their constituents is vital and would be strengthened by single-member wards.

I was moving on to the arguments about whole-council elections or elections by thirds. Given a choice between elections by whole council and by thirds I would go for by thirds, but why not have half-council elections every two years? That would be sufficient to keep those in authority on their toes, mindful of an election not too far in the distance, but it would not be so unstable that it would not allow for policies to be introduced and developed.

The report mentions the political class, and the divide between the political class and “ordinary” people. Presumably, the political class is extraordinary, and I suppose we are, in one sense, because we have been consumed by the political process, and once bitten by the political bug we find it difficult to let go. If we allow local authorities more freedom, we will have more people getting involved.

Our local government system relies on a functional, vibrant, party political system and I have reservations about the role of local authorities in promoting democracy and elections because that is what the parties should be doing. It is yet another example of officials—the state, in the broadest sense—doing something that should be done by the voluntary sector, the voluntary sector being the political parties.

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[Robert Neill]

There are two things that we can think about that; I understand—superficially—where the view comes from, but there are things that we should look at. First, there is the question of entitlement to paid time off to enable people to do their work, which we ought to think about. Secondly, and this is something I had to think about as somebody who was self-employed, if I was not earning a fee, whatever percentage of that fee I might have put towards my pension arrangements, I would have to make up elsewhere.

What we can do, and this would be permissible under the Government’s proposal, is say that there is no reason why a councillor cannot put a portion of their allowances, which are set locally, towards a private pension. Then, of course, they could claim the tax relief, which is part of that process. So people are not prevented from making some provision.

I accept that this is a difficult issue, but I think that there is a general feeling among the public that—if anything—we will have to be rather more cautious in our approach to pensions right across the public sector. That applies to Members of this House—our pension scheme is being revised, including for Ministers; the ministerial pension scheme is being revised—and it is happening to civil service pensions and to local government officers’ pensions. We cannot escape the fact that doing otherwise would send a message that is rather at variance with the general thrust of the approach towards pensions in the public sector. The Government’s actions are consistent with saying that, for a raft of reasons, we must recognise that we can perhaps no longer adopt the same approach towards pensions as we did before.

As I say, I accept that this is a difficult and controversial issue, and I have tried to use pretty moderate and non-partisan terms. I understand the arguments either way, but we have to be realistic about things.

As I have said, the great value of councillors is that they are not officers. I would not want—even by accident and inadvertence, if you like—to get to a stage where we do something else that reinforces the idea that councillors are part of the payroll. We would not make councillors more effective at being councillors by making them more like officers. The whole idea is that they are different and separate, and the fact that very often they have employment and experience in the private sector is part of the added value that they bring in as a different dimension to the council.

[Mark Pawsey]

On occasion, the role of the councillor is to call officers to account and there is sometimes a danger that councillors become too closely identified with the body on which they are a councillor.

[Robert Neill]

That is a perfectly fair point, and it applies right across government. I do not go as far as one council leader, with whom I served at one time, who said that his committee chairmen—we call them cabinet members now—were not doing their job if their officers and directors were not scared of them. I would not recommend such an approach, but there has to be a proper degree of distance; I think all of us would recognise that, because sometimes we have to make it clear that there is a dividing line of responsibility, and about where decisions are ultimately taken.

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[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate. Like many Members who have spoken, I am a former councillor, although I feel rather inadequate in the face of the long service of all the other Members here, having served as a councillor for only five years.

I became a councillor in 2002, and it was easy for me to do so, because I did not have a boss to ask permission from. I was running my own businesses, and like other Members, I found it easy to allocate time to being a councillor. I sat on a district council, and the majority of meetings were in the evening, so it was easy for me to attend. At no stage did I contemplate putting my name forward for a county council, given the number of daytime meetings and the time commitment they would have involved.

I am pleased to make my contribution as a member of the Select Committee, and I pay tribute to the Chairman for pulling the report together in a way all members were able to support. Listening to the debate, I was reminded of the evidence sessions we held—almost 12 months ago now. We had a number of formal evidence sessions, but I got most out of the more informal sessions, and particularly the speed dating, which was much to the interest of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). It was extremely valuable to be able to meet people who would not normally give evidence in the very formal Select Committee setting. It was particularly valuable to speak to people who had contemplated becoming a councillor, but who had chosen not to do so, because there is no body representing them.

As an aside, let me say there is some merit in making more use of informal evidence sessions in the Select Committee system. We get to speak to people on more of a one-to-one basis and to hear their views without their needing to be concerned about going into the House of Commons, sitting behind a desk with microphones and being interrogated by Members of Parliament. We got an awful lot out of the less formal sessions, and the Chairman is looking at doing more informal sessions, because we generally get more out of them.

The report is important because the councillor’s role is important, and councillors enable councils to do their work well. We need to encourage more people to put their names forward, and I want to talk about the role of the political parties in that.

I come from an area with a two-tier authority. The first tier across much of my constituency is parish councils. Parish councils are, of course, not political, and people with an interest in the community will put their names forward for parish councils. However, at district and county level, the councils are run on party-political lines. I do not know the statistics, but a significant proportion of councillors on county and district councils are from the established political parties, although I suspect there are more independent members on district councils than on county councils.

We need to make it easier for people to become councillors. In the main, the way to do that is through our established political parties. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst is doing work on that in the Conservative party, and I am sure the same kind of work is being undertaken in the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. The role of the parties in encouraging people to come forward must be brought out. Perhaps the parties should come together and put together a uniform campaign to explain why people should become councillors.

Another issue raised in the report is the need to encourage people with broader experience of life—particularly people with experience of senior roles in the community—to put their names forward. If we look back two or three generations—we often see this when we visit council offices, because there are photographs of past mayors and past councils on the walls—we see that business leaders, head teachers, accountants, lawyers and other professional people with experience of senior roles were actively engaged in local politics. One concern is that we are not encouraging that cohort to come forward, and those people often see the council’s role through a negative lens, rather than a positive one. As has been said, it is distressing to hear of councillors being encouraged to take the fact that they are a councillor off their CVs; that is a matter of great concern.

The Chairman of the Select Committee drew attention to the fact that the average age of a councillor is now 60, that only 31% of councillors are women and that 96% of councillors are white. On the age range, we have discussed the fact that the role can be attractive to somebody who is straight out of university; for them, the allowance is relatively large, and somebody who is young and perhaps living at home can use it as their primary source of income. However, as people move into jobs that are more demanding of their time, and particularly when they have children, it becomes difficult for them to get involved—my children were reasonably old before I felt able to put time into becoming a councillor. Parents may, therefore, be particularly under-represented among councillors.

In written evidence to the Committee, Professor Colin Copus made an interesting European comparison. It turns out that Spain’s councillors are the youngest, with a mean age of as low as 45. We then go up the table through Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Austria, France, Germany and Sweden, before we get to the UK at the very top, with an average age of 59. We really need to focus on those in the middle years of their careers and to make it interesting for them to come forward.

How might we do that? Clearly, we need to ensure that people are not put off by the prospect of becoming a councillor. There is a real lack of understanding of the time that being a councillor takes up. We have spoken about training, and I recognise the need for it, but one thing I was aware of, particularly in the early years of being a councillor, was the massive number of briefings, which take up an awful amount of time. Even when we become more experienced as councillors, we are still dragged along to many meetings that are perhaps not necessary. I recognise, as the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) said, that councillors need to be actively involved in the council, but far too often, councillors go into meetings that are not particularly significant or valuable, and they come away thinking, “Did I really get anything out of that?”

One thing that is a real turn-off for people thinking about becoming a councillor—we, as parliamentarians, are responsible for this—is the bickering and the Punch and Judy nature of politics. Parliament often does not represent itself well. Many people’s only awareness of national politics is what they see in Prime Minister’s Question Time on television. They see the bickering, and it does not encourage people to come forward.

We have heard a fair amount about the under-representation of women in councils. I should be interested to hear the view of the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), but I think women are particularly put off by the bickering that sometimes happens in a council chamber. We all support robust debate, but sometimes it goes too far.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I hear that point made frequently. Anyone who has seen women council leaders in the north-west would probably not think that. The real drawbacks are meeting times and the lack of child care. I had my child when I was a councillor and I had to go back a week later, because it was a hung council. Those are the things that need attention. The idea of a different political mindset among men and women is overplayed.

[Mark Pawsey]

My evidence may be anecdotal, but it comes from two councils that I know of. One was quite antagonistic, and women were under-represented. The other was in Rugby and it was rather more gentle, partly, I felt, because power had gone through different groups and coalitions so we worked more consensually. I thought it was a more attractive council chamber to be involved in, and we had a far larger proportion of women. I simply make that observation.

We need to give councillors real power. The Localism Act 2011 has been mentioned. For far too long, all councillors did was rubber-stamp policy that came from Government. I remember having Hobson’s choice about what action to take. Not doing what the Government wanted would mean not getting the grant that would enable something to happen. Under the current cabinet model, cabinet members have executive power and are actively involved in the council; but council back benchers have little role. They sit on scrutiny committees and can make recommendations, but it is hard to get things done. That is why the Government should be applauded for the 2011 Act, which gives power back to councillors and councils. I hope and expect that the additional powers that councils have will lead many people with more senior roles in the community to put their names forward.

I want to consider the accessibility of councillors. Often, particularly in a two-tier authority, people do not know which councillor is responsible for what, and often they will therefore not go to their councillor to solve a problem. It has been mentioned that MPs get letters about potholes, roads, road lighting, parking and planning—things that are not within our control—and we should tell those correspondents “Go to your local councillor, who is someone who can deal with that.” My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) made a valuable point about multi-member wards, where the disconnect is even greater. With single-member wards, an effort to convey to people the responsibilities of their councils, and councils that made themselves more accessible, things would work better. I was interested by the remarks of the hon. Member for Croydon North, who spoke about a councillor’s satisfaction at solving a problem. We can all identify with that, but it struck me that the benefits matter in question was more likely to be a national issue than a local council one. That is the reverse of the experience I have been describing, which is probably more the norm.

We have had a useful report and debate. I hope that we have recognised the important and active role that councillors play, and that some of our recommendations will be taken forward.

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the local press has an important role to play? Brighton and Hove councillors do an enormous amount of good work which perhaps is not much reported in the press; they do not have the prestige that goes with that.

[Mark Pawsey]

My hon. Friend is entirely right, and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) also referred to the community’s lack of interest in the work of the council. Ultimately, I suppose, the newspapers would say, “If people want to read about it, we will print it,” but it is important for councils to give them information. We know the pressures that newspapers are under; if councils can put the information in a valuable form there is a greater chance that the local papers will use it.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

My local newspaper, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, is tweeting from a planning meeting at Kirklees council, which reminds me of the fact that a couple of the new councillors are professionals in their 40s who run their own businesses. There they are, having to give up a whole day, potentially, of paid work, to work on behalf of their community and make the right decisions on a planning committee. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to think about how to get people of that age group—professionals who are still working—making such important local decisions?

[Mark Pawsey]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend has identified how councillors are adopting new methods of communication to make certain that their residents know exactly what hard work they are doing.

We have had a valuable debate and, I hope, recognised the role of councillors. I look forward to the remarks of the Minister and shadow Minister.