Is local democracy really what the public wants?

Friday, January 09, 2009

If the government is meeting public demand for 'power to the people', as Hazel Blears continues to claim, why did hardly anyone in Stoke-on-Trent bother to vote last year and why did two thirds of the voters reject the elected mayor system? Professor Michael Clarke, chairman of the commission that looked at governance in the city, takes a look

In October last year, the electors of Stoke-on-Trent went to the polls. Or, more accurately, they should have done. In fact, more than 80 per cent stayed at home. Of the derisory number who voted, two thirds were in favour of a leader and cabinet for the city council, while one third wanted to retain an elected mayor. Why the vote? And why the apparent lack of interest?

When the 2000 Local Government Act introduced the principle of elected mayors, Stoke-on-Trent was the only local authority to choose a (weak) elected mayor along with a (strong, executive) council manager. At the time there was heated debate about the mayoral model and its appropriateness for this country. Of the models on offer, the one which was most alien was the one chosen in Stoke-on-Trent.

The vote happened because the latest local government legislation removes the model from the statute book and requires a choice between a more conventional mayoral model and a leader with cabinet.

But why the lack of interest? The answer to this question is more complex. It takes us way beyond the council chamber to the seemingly broken politics of the city – and so into much more controversial territory.

In summer 2007 the government announced it was going to set up a commission to examine the governance of the city and the options available under the new legislation; to examine broader questions about the governance of Stoke-on Trent; and to set all of this in the sub-regional, regional and national context. I was asked to chair the commission and was joined by a distinguished group of colleagues. We reported in May, making 14 principal recommendations. These have all been strongly supported by the government and accepted by the council.

We spent the first months collecting written evidence and familiarising ourselves with the city, its challenges and its politics. From January until Easter we took oral evidence from a wide variety of people, then spent the final weeks condensing our thinking and preparing what was to be a radical report. The striking thing about the whole enterprise was the strong consensus running through the evidence – consensus about the nature of the place, the issues facing it and, indeed, some of the key things which seemed to have gone wrong.

In my foreword to our report I said we had been "alternately excited and dismayed in the course of our journey", but that we had emerged optimistic, and at one in a passionate commitment to the city's future. The latter is both striking and important given the catalogue of woes presented to us about the apparent fractures in the city's political system and the levels of disengagement from normal civic life, alongside evidence about the low levels of aspiration and hope for the economic and social fabric.

When we were given our brief, I don't think anyone had really recognised the scale of the problem. Yes, there had been the conventional signs of a failing council, in terms of service provision and so on. And there had been recognition that the various measures put in place to ameliorate this were having an impact and service delivery was improving.

What we were to discover was a parallel set of issues to do with the fundamentals of political life. They were deeper-rooted and more profound than the managerial issues – and would have massive consequences if left unattended to. Arguably, some consequences were already evident in the way the BNP was beginning to flourish in the void left by the breakdown of conventional party politics. Our recommendations therefore concentrated on a set of measures to encourage the reconstruction of the city's political life. It was a brave act for the city council to accept the recommendations but perhaps a sign of how desperate things had become.

Four of our recommendations are designed to produce a new council: all-out elections; single member wards; a smaller council; and devolution of governance to the local level within the city.

Three recommendations are to do with strengthening civic and political engagement: the development of multiple ways of involving citizens and providing training to develop civic and political know-how and capability; actions aimed particularly at young people and the city's diverse minority communities; and a recommendation to the national parties to rebuild their local member-ship organisations.

There are three which are about the internal operations of the council: a new strategy for member development; a review of overview and scrutiny; and a radical look at councillors' pay and special responsibility allowances (where currently 51 out of the 60 members receive allowances against a guideline figure of 50 per cent). There are also recommendations about the city's profile, governance arrangements in North Staffordshire and the relationship between the council and the three local MPs.

Recognising the challenges that the council and others will face in implementing our report, our final recommendation provides a cornerstone. This establishes a transition board to hold the reform process to account, to provide external support for those involved and to act as prompt and conscience. It met for the first time on 11 November to receive a report on the council's action plan and its first stages of implementation.