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Power to the People? Tackling the Gender Imbalance in Combined Authorities & Local Government

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Power to the People? Tackling the Gender Imbalance in Combined Authorities & Local Government Institute for Public Policy Research ? POWER TO THE PEOPLE? TACKLING THE GENDER IMBALANCE IN COMBINED AUTHORITIES & LOCAL GOVERNMENT Clare McNeil, Carys Roberts and Charlotte Snelling ABOUT IPPR IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research, is the UK’s leading progressive think tank. We are an independent charitable organisation with more than 40 staff members, paid interns and visiting fellows. Our main office is in London, with IPPR North, IPPR’s dedicated think tank for the North of England, operating out of offices in Manchester and Newcastle, and IPPR Scotland, our dedicated think tank for Scotland, based in Edinburgh. Our purpose is to conduct and promote research into, and the education of the public in, the economic, social and political sciences, science and technology, the voluntary sector and social enterprise, public services, and industry and commerce. IPPR 4th Floor 14 Buckingham Street London WC2N 6DF T: +44 (0)20 7470 6100 E: [email protected] www.ippr.org Registered charity no: 800065 (England and Wales), SC046557 (Scotland). This paper was first published in August 2017. © 2017 The contents and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors' only. The progressive policy think tank CONTENTS Summary ..........................................................................................................................3 Key findings ....................................................................................................... 5 The case for reform – lessons from other countries ................................6 Recommendations ........................................................................................... 7 1. Introduction ..............................................................................................................10 Research questions ........................................................................................11 2. The state of play on gender representation in local and sub-regional government .....................................................................................13 What do combined authorities mean for women’s political representation? .............................................................................................. 16 The political journey to combined authority boards .............................20 3. What is not working? Barriers to women’s representation .........................27 Where are the sticking points? ................................................................... 27 Challenges in recruitment and retention ..................................................29 4. Women’s representation in local politics: What can we learn from other countries? ......................................................................................................35 Scotland ........................................................................................................... 35 Wales ...............................................................................................................39 Germany........................................................................................................... 41 Sweden ...........................................................................................................45 Conclusions ..................................................................................................... 47 5. Recommendations ................................................................................................ 50 Summary of recommendations ..................................................................50 Conclusion ......................................................................................................54 References ....................................................................................................................55 Appendix: Initiatives to increase women’s political participation ............... 59 Canada .............................................................................................................59 The US ............................................................................................................. 61 The UK .............................................................................................................62 The Republic of Ireland ................................................................................64 IPPR | Power to the people? Tackling the gender imbalance in combined authorities & local government 1 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Clare McNeil is an Associate Director at IPPR. Carys Roberts is a Research Fellow at IPPR. Charlotte Snelling is a Research Fellow at IPPR. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank all those we interviewed for this report. We would also like to thank several colleagues at IPPR, including Ed Cox, Miatta Fahnbulleh and Luke Murphy, as well as Vahe Boghosian and Sarah Longlands for their excellent contributions to the research. Download This document is available to download as a free PDF and in other formats at: http://www.ippr.org/publications/power-to-the-people-tackling-gender-imbalance Citation If you are using this document in your own writing, our preferred citation is: McNeil C, Roberts C and Snelling C (2017) Power to the people? Tackling the gender imbalance in combined authorities & local government, IPPR. http://www.ippr.org/publications/power-to-the-people-tackling-gender-imbalance Permission to share This document is published under a creative commons licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/ For commercial use, please contact [email protected] 2 IPPR | Power to the people? Tackling the gender imbalance in combined authorities & local government SUMMARY INTRODUCTION A new generation of young women is ready and willing to participate in politics. The UK general election in June 2017 saw a rise in voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-old women, with participation up from 44 to 53 per cent compared with the 2015 general election. However, so far there is little evidence to suggest that this will translate into higher levels of party membership and political representation among women. Despite making up half of the population and voting in the same numbers as men, on average only 34 per cent of women are a member of a political party, typically the first step into participating into local politics. This is the first in a ‘pattern of thirds’, which runs through candidate selection and election, and then thins out dramatically at the top of local government, with women entirely absent among directly elected mayors and representing just 4% of the leadership of England’s new devolved institutions – the combined authorities. Figure S1 sets out the different stages in women’s representation in the journey towards leadership at the top of local government, showing how, from party membership onwards, it is deeply unequal. IPPR | Power to the people? Tackling the gender imbalance in combined authorities & local government 3 FIGURE S11 The stages at which there are barriers to women reaching the top of local government Women 51% Poulation o omen are registered to vote o men are lectorate abour registered to vote iberal emocrats Conservatives omen Part members abour iberal emocrats andidate Conservatives alicants omen andidates 60% Woe eer ol Woe eer Woe o oe thort or et verage col verage (cottet eers)/ lected 50% 50 tret omen councillors 40% 30% abinet 20% members 10% 0% Wet omen Wet o Wet reter oo eadershi l Sheffield l Liverpool orth t Tee lley Tee heter Wet orhre Wet rehre Peteroroh Source: IPPR analysis using Fieldhouse E, Green J, Evans G, Schmitt H and van der Eijk C, British Election Study Internet Panel Wave (Fieldhouse et al 2015); Office for National Statistics, ‘Population estimates analysis tool’ (ONS 2016); The Electoral Commission, The December 2015 electoral registers in Great Britain (The Electoral Commission 2016); Bazeley A, Glover J, Lucas L, Sloane N and Trenow P, Does local government work for women? Interim report of the Local Government Commission (Bazeley et al 2017a); Bazeley A, Glover J, Lucas L, Sloane N and Trenow P, Does local government work for women? Final report of the Local Government Commission (Bazeley et al 2017b) This level of representation of women at the top of institutions which claim to be bringing power closer to the people is unacceptable in 2017. We argue that political parties and institutions must seize the recent increase in voter turnout among young women to dramatically increase the numbers of women going into local politics. This must be complemented by a series of radical reforms to improve the pipeline of women rising to the top in local politics, and to correct the absence of women at the top of combined authorities. 1 The figure shows how women’s representation occurs across England’s combined authorities, as well as in Greater London, which, while also representing a collection of local authorities, is governed by different structures, namely through the directly elected Greater London assembly (partially shaded). 4 IPPR | Power to the people? Tackling the gender imbalance in combined authorities & local government KEY FINDINGS Women are less likely to become local councillors because they are less likely than men to be political party members. Women make up just 38 per cent of Labour party members and only 36 per cent of Conservative party members. As a result, fewer women and more men develop the connections and knowledge needed
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