For the last decade or so, most of the focus on local government reform in Wales has centred on the 22 unitary local authorities/counties.
However, the tier of local government below them often gets sidestepped.
A lack of a clear role or purpose – I doubt many people know what their community council does, what the political make-up of their local community council is or what happens at meetings. It’s often left to councillors themselves to promote their work on social media – which can sometimes be effective, but not always. It’s too easy to dismiss the hard work involved when it’s largely a voluntary role that involves long meetings after normal working hours.
There’s no coherent structure – Only 72% of the Welsh population is covered by a community council. As mentioned earlier, they can vary massively in size because they’re mainly based on historic parishes; the number of residents represented by Barry Town Council comes very close to matching the population of Merthyr Tydfil (County Borough) but it’s responsible for a fraction of the services. Some of the smaller community councils may simply exist for the sake of existing and don’t have the budget to do anything significant.
Financial mismanagement – At the start of 2020, Audit Wales reported that a third of community councils in Wales had their accounts qualified (deemed unacceptable). There are also long-standing problems with a minority of community councils either failing to meet deadlines for submission of accounts or not having proper budget procedures in place.
Given community councils are responsible for an estimated precept base, reserves and assets worth around £260million combined this is a serious issue even if at a local level in a single community council it may only involve a few thousand pounds.
Issues caused by Community Asset Transfer – The financial situation may be partially caused by community councils being put under too much pressure by the 22 unitary authorities to take on assets that they may not always have the finances or skills to run. Running a public toilet, for instance, may sound easy on paper but you have to consider things like insurance, health and safety, ongoing maintenance and maintenance backlogs, accessibility and equalities issues, estimates on how much revenue it would raise if a charge was applied etc.
High turnover of members and low profile – The vast majority of community councillors in Wales win by default meaning the seats are uncontested/there’s no election. Political parties often struggle to find enough candidates. Even following the completion of all-Wales local elections (the next one is due in 2022) there are often large numbers of seats at community council level left empty.
Through the course of a term, there’s often a large turnover of members; I’ve lost count of the number of by-elections and co-options in Bridgend alone since 2017. That’s somewhat understandable because there are around 8,000 community councillors in Wales so you would expect a large number of them not to see out their terms. However, the convenience of simply co-opting someone from the same party to fill a vacancy usually starts arguments. Elections and by-elections to community councils still cost money and outside of all-Wales local elections more often than not result in very low turnouts (< 15-20%) even if it’s important for democracy.
Infighting and lack of professionalism – While I’m sure the vast majority of community councillors are in it for the right reasons (a sense of civic duty and a desire to improve their local area), there are issues with the calibre and attitudes of some of them. I can only speak for Bridgend, but the amount of backbiting and “he said, she said” stuff on social media by a minority has reached embarrassing levels at times and isn’t a good look.
Some councillors that should’ve moved on a long time ago are still there. As there may be X number of seats on a council they may be convinced to stand by a party or group for the sake of it in order to make up the numbers and plant a flag for the party/group, not because they would actually be any good. When stuff like that happens on a regular basis it’s a clear sign that there are too many members in the first place.
Some may ignore or turn down training opportunities and expect better-qualified members to babysit/carry them. Others may see it as a stepping stone to a more senior position and may seek to over-politicise their work to raise their profile and generate headlines; the community’s needs start to get ignored.
