Councillor submissions to the Cheshire West & Chester electoral review This PDF document contains submissions by councillors. Click on the submission you would like to view. If you are not taken to that page, please scroll through the document. From: Gareth Anderson Sent: 02 February 2010 00:00 To: Reviews@ Cc: Subject: Cheshire West & Chester review Dear Sir/Madam, Please find attached a response from myself and my Conservative councillor colleagues from Ellesmere Port & Neston regarding the review for CHhshire West & Chester. I would welcome a note of receipt. Many thanks, -- Councillor Gareth Anderson Ledsham & Willaston Ward Cheshire West & Chester Council Please visit www.garethanderson.net for news, views and to get in touch. COUNCILLOR GARETH ANDERSON Dear Sir/Madam, As a member of the Electoral Review Working Group of Cheshire West & Chester Borough Council (CWaC) I would like to make a few comments on my own account (and on behalf of my Conservative colleagues who represent most of the areas I am going to focus on in Ellesmere Port & Neston following a meeting we had over this previous weekend) in relation to the council’s submission for our Electoral Review. This is my second personal submission to you regarding this review. My first was submitted as part of Stage One but despite receiving acknowledgement of my email it was not included in any of your documentation nor did it appear to be used in any of your deliberations. I emailed you about this matter on 4/1/2010 but have yet to receive a reply to the concerns I raised then either. 1. Cross-Party Plans. Firstly I feel it is important to stress that the council’s two submissions, first for a pattern of multi-member wards, and now for a mix of wards, was drawn up during almost a year’s worth of detailed work by the Working Group which involved representatives from all parties on the council coming from all parts of the new Borough. As a working group we had an excellent officer in David Owen who drew up several different warding patterns for us to use as a base for further development, and these included single- member only, multi-member only and a mix of single AND multi-member ward structures. These were very rough and approximate and were there to give us an indication of what was possible, but they all would have required considerable work to create a pattern that met communities of interest AND electoral equality. We recognised that within the group there were differences of opinion on the issue of single- member versus multi-member wards, however that did not stop every member of that group taking a full and active role in drawing up the official submission from the Borough Council. We relied on the views of the Liberal Democrat member (Cllr Gaskill) in creating our proposals for the Winsford area that he hails from, and likewise Cllr Merrick (Labour) was very helpful in working with me to create the proposed pattern of wards in the Ellesmere Port and Neston areas especially. At Stage One the Boundary Committee received an alternative proposal from the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties based on 75 single-member wards. Their proposal was an off-the- shelf model used as a starting point should the working group or council have decided to develop a single-member ward proposal. Neither the working group nor the council as a whole did and thus this plan was not developed beyond this deeply flawed first draft. Therefore not only was the alternative for 75 single-member wards totally under-developed and flawed for a number of reasons, it did not had any cross-party or wider community input to help create it. It lacked broad support, and did not even gain the support of 3 of the 13 members of the council’s Labour Group at Full Council when it was voted on during Stage One. I was pleased, and relieved, to see that you rejected most of these proposals as they neither satisfied communities of interest nor the arithmetical needs of the process. It is likely that the alternative proposals from the Labour Party will rely on much of these original ideas and therefore will still be flawed for many of the reasons I state here. I urge you to reject them again. 2. Why Multi-Member Wards? I believe very strongly indeed that the best model of local representation is in multi-member wards. The council’s submission outlines many of these reasons but I would like to emphasise and explain what I believe are the most important of these. However, I recognise that you did not support this model at Stage One, and we did therefore pragmatically adopt a number of single-member wards from your draft recommendations. There is a request in the council submission for you to address our concerns regarding “convenient and effective local government” and I would welcome such a response. In the meantime please accept this as reasons why we have in several areas chosen to merge some of your single-member proposals. Democratic Choice. At election time all residents have an active choice between parties and candidates/councillors and can spread their votes accordingly. This competition should improve the quality of councillors and candidates as parties and know voters can choose and split their support across parties. It creates true electoral competition. Community Champions and Leadership Roles. It is acknowledged that in the structure of a modern council (CWaC included) there are positions of varying responsibility. In particular there is a separation encouraged by the Local Government Act 2000 between the management and leadership role of Executive members and the constituency/community champion role of other members of the council. In practice the leadership roles in councils are not confined to the Executive only, but the Chairmen of major committees and the leaders of political groups too. These roles demand considerable extra time from members and make it harder for them to act as effective community champions in the same way as members without these roles can. This would disadvantage residents in single-member wards where their councillor had undertaken a leadership role. It may in fact make it harder for councillors to spend time as effective leaders within the structure of the council if they have nobody else to support them in their role as community champion. Multi-member wards allow for a spread of responsibility, and for real team work between councillors where one may have a leadership role and another’s focus is as community champion. Limiting Representation for the Public. There are many roles within the structure of the council which councillors take on which limit their ability to act on behalf of their residents (such as a member of Planning Boards or Strategic Planning Committee or Public Rights of Way). Single-member wards immediately mean that those residents are denied an automatic champion on these issues as the law limits what their elected representatives can do. A pattern of single-member wards designed to ape the House of Commons does not reflect the reality of local government where Councillors are frequently responsible for quasi-judicial decisions unlike MPs. Multi-member wards make it far more likely that residents will have a councillor able to speak up for them at these committees and on these issues on their behalf. It is actually limiting the democratic rights of residents in such situations if you have single-member wards. There is a similar situation if a councillor has a prejudicial interest for some reason. In multi-member wards they will have a colleague still likely to be able to assist residents. With planning being one of the most common ways in which residents seek the help of a local councillor people will have to choose to either not serve on planning, a vital function of local councils, or not serve their residents, the most important function of being an elected representative. Multi-member wards can avoid this situation entirely. Diversity of Councillors. Councils such as CWaC, and our partners, have meetings at various times during the day and evening, and the government (not to mention political parties) is rightly aiming to improve the socio-economic, gender, age etc. backgrounds of members. If residents have just one councillor to turn to for all aspects of local government services then they are much more likely to want someone able to take part in daytime and evening meetings etc. This will severely limit the backgrounds of those able to be councillors to the wealthy, the retired and the unemployed. This will do nothing for good representation. In a pattern of multi-member wards parties and voters are able to select and elect councillors from a variety of ages and backgrounds, thus ensuring a more diverse and representative authority. Cheshire West & Chester has a relatively diverse range of members serving on it, with several of us in our 20s and 30s, many with young families, a large number who work full or part-time in a variety of public and private sector roles as well as retired members. This would be under severe threat if we have a pattern of all single-member wards. I must declare an interest in this as I am 29 years old, work as a secondary school teacher and thus most of the time cannot make daytime meetings. In my current ward my colleagues are both retired and we share the workload between out so that our residents have a variety of representation at all times of the day and night.