Local Government V – The Community

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Next, it’s time to go through some of the advantages and disadvantages of each one individually.

Community Meetings

Community/public meetings already happen, particularly where there’s a contentious local issue. Using it as a form of community governance perhaps isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds.

While it’s right that only a single recognised/organised series of community meetings should be held in a single given area, in principles meetings of this kind could be held at a level even smaller than a council ward.

Advantages:

• The purest form of democracy; anyone who turns up can have a say and stake in their community.
  
• The whole community would have an opportunity to set priorities for themselves. It won’t be decided for them by someone else.
• It could encourage a broader range of views and ideas to be expressed, particularly from those who might not otherwise have much of a voice (i.e. young people, the disabled) as there are fewer barriers to taking part.
  
• It could improve connection with a neighbourhood and community; meetings could be as much a social event as a political one.
• While there would be costs involved (i.e. hiring meeting venues), it’s arguably more cost-effective than a community council or any other form of organised community government.
  

Disadvantages:

• The most successful community meetings we hold now are usually on a single controversial issue on which everyone agrees; it may be more difficult to get big attendances to discuss mundane issues. PACT meetings with the police were notorious for poor attendance.
• Meetings may be hard to moderate if there are strongly held views on a particular issue.
• Legal issues could arise over assets, liabilities, pension contributions etc. relating to former town & community councils. The danger is that they end up taking on too much, too quickly (more in Part VIII).
• Decision-making may be quicker but there won’t be any clear strategy behind it; it’s easy to demand something but much harder to deliver it if there are no consistent finances or policies.
• There’s a risk that such meetings would only attract self-appointed community leaders, pub bores, single-issue types, neat-and-tidy brigades and various assorted busybodies. A “committee” would likely end up emerging by default to dominate meetings and if that happens you might as well just elect a community council.

Community Associations

Similar to American neighbourhood associations and alike, this would shift community governance from the local government sector to the voluntary sector as something akin to existing community interest companies. It’s similar, but not identical, to previous initiatives in Wales such as Communities First.

As they could be run as charitable organisations, they could be regulated by the Charity Commission (or equivalent in an independent Wales).

Advantages:

• An open-ended remit; community associations could theoretically do anything a charity could.
• It may make it easier to take over the running of at-risk community assets, as a charitable association would have some flexibility in how they run themselves – including as a business – though with additional checks and balances.
• Associations wouldn’t be allowed to have ties to political parties, possibly up to and including a ban on board members/trustees being a member of a political party, or being an elected representative. The entire purpose of a community association would be to put the neighbourhood first.
  
• When they’re effective they could improve ties between neighbours and generally lift the standard of living in a local area; some Japanese chonaikai, for example, look out for elderly people living alone and provide basic childcare services.
• They could prioritise the views and demands of their community, but with someone to contact and a clear strategy or plan in place to do so.

Disadvantages:

• There would be no elections in the same way we elect town & community councils; there’s a risk that board members/trustees would become a self-sustaining clique, making it difficult to get new faces involved.
• In some cases, Wales’ experiment with Communities First – similar to neighbourhood associations – was unsuccessful.
• Legal issues could arise over assets, liabilities, pension contributions etc. The danger is that they end up taking on too much, too quickly (more in Part VIII).
• Charity & not-for-profit ≠ good; we have an over-romantic view of charities and there are plenty of examples of charitable organisations being defrauded or mismanaged.
• In the United States, neighbourhood and homeowners’ associations have a reputation for being jobsworths and setting rules for things such as grass length. The Japanese chonaikai are not averse to ostracising newcomers until they’ve “proven themselves”. Given Wales can be parochial, that kind of thing could happen here fairly easily.

Town & Community Councils

Keeping things as they are. As it stands there are around 730 town & community councils in Wales and around 8,000 town & community councillors (Part IX).

While they don’t cover the entirety of the country and their level of local influence varies, the sector plays its part in providing basic community services and facilities. They also have the power to raise income through council tax precepts, fees/charges, grants and borrowing.

Advantages:

• We’re familiar with it. It’s a system that’s been used in Wales to varying degrees for centuries.
• In most cases, town & community councils are small enough to represent communities that may otherwise be subsumed by larger neighbours and lose their community voice.
• People know who to contact, meaning town & community councils can act effectively as co-ordinators for action at the neighbourhood/community level.
• They have clear financial powers and still be subject to external and internal audits. They’re also required to have a properly qualified Clerk. They’re usually not reliant on anyone else for finance.
• Instead of being abolished, there’s enough flexibility to merge smaller community councils, reduce the overall number of councillors and change the voting system.
• Many town & community councils have grant schemes that provide local groups and charities with significant sums of money.
• Councillors are community-spirited volunteers and likely the same people who would form community associations or alike in the first place; some double-job as county councillors providing a link between the two tiers of local government. It’s a good “apprenticeship” for those seeking office at a higher level.

Disadvantages:

• They don’t have any teeth as they lack statutory responsibilities despite being an additional cost to taxpayers.
• There’s a big variation in size and there’s no consistency. Some town & community councils are so small that they can hold meetings and do little else while others provide services that should normally be provided by unitary authorities/county councils.
• They’re not subject to the same strict management requirements as the unitary authorities, meaning there are no clear rules on issues such as webcasting and most town & community councils don’t operate bilingually.
• As mentioned previously, there have been concerns from Audit Wales about how some community councils manage their finances. Appropriate skills in scrutiny and finance are in short supply as it’s often quite technical. Expecting volunteer councillors to carry each other or work things out for themselves is asking for trouble. Clerks end up becoming the driving force behind most community councils by default.
• There are examples of community councillors not accepting their “corporate body”/collective responsibility role and acting in a partisan manner, making decision-making and meetings increasingly harder to manage.
• Most town & community councillors in Wales are appointed through co-options meaning elections are the exception rather than the norm. Some community councils often struggle to find people to fill seats.
• There’s a risk that if councils were merged it could “punish” smaller well-performing councils to spare the embarrassment of poorly-run larger ones.
• In some cases it’s hard to find out what’s going on at town & community council level because there are simply too many of them, restricting  outside scrutiny (such as by the media).

Area Committees

Responsibility for the equivalent of town & community councils would pass to a county council scrutiny committee made up of county councillors elected to wards within a designated area (Part IX).

Advantages:

• Area committees would be part of a county/county borough council. This means they would have the full resources of the council – including regular contact with officers and other full-time staff – at their disposal.
• They would be a natural “corporate body”, with decisions made collectively. They would be subject to county council requirements in Welsh law on remote working, webcasting, job-sharing, Welsh language etc.
• Committees could be tasked with preparing a multi-year neighbourhood plan with representatives from outside organisations (i.e. police, housing associations, NHS). While there’s no reason why existing town & community councils couldn’t do this, the ties between county councils and such organisations (through Public Service Boards, for instance) might make it easier for an area committee to do it.
• County councils are already likely to hold the leases on some community assets managed by town & community councils and other organisations, making the process of reform a bit smoother.
• It’s not uncommon for town & community councillors to double-job as county councillors anyway; this would remove a tier of local government without abandoning the principle of local representative bodies, possibly saving money with little noticeable impact.

Disadvantages:

• Small fish in a bigger pond: councillors representing wards that currently have a dedicated town or community council may have to work with councillors from other wards to cover a bigger area as part of an area committee. Subsequently, they could be crowded out or find it more difficult to fight their community’s corner.
• Area committees may appear to be too distant – imposed on the community by a county council – and it could restrict the number and range of people elected to give a voice to their area (i.e. all ward councillors being from one party or group).
• It could present a conflict of interest challenge if, for example, a councillor was a county council Cabinet member at the same time as being on an area committee.
• It wouldn’t necessarily save money if area committees were given powers to set council tax precepts to fund their own projects.
• Many unitary authorities are actively trying to transfer control over community assets to community councils to save money. Why would they want to u-turn on that?
• Welsh politics would lose that “apprenticeship” role town & community councils play, potentially limiting the political experience some candidates get before standing for county council, Senedd or Westminster seats.

Municipal Councils

Municipal councils would be “town & community councils on steroids” (Part IX). There would be far fewer of them – probably focused on a larger settlement, group of settlements (i.e. a valley) or a specific rural area. There would be fewer councillors. They may represent, for the sake of argument, a minimum electorate of between 10,000-30,000 people when most town & community councils represent under 2,500 electors (pdf – p27).

They would presumably be called “town/town & district”, “district” or “city/city & district” council depending on the make-up of their community.

Municipal councils ought to have the scale and financial clout to take on more responsibilities from the county/county boroughs – and do so effectively – but remaining small enough to maintain a local connection. You would also expect municipalities to work jointly where deemed effective or necessary to do so – whether that’s sharing backroom staff or running services through a joint board (i.e. a single group of planning officers working across 4 or 5 municipalities, but each municipality retaining powers over development control).

Advantages:

• They would have far more clout than town & community councils. Precept income would likely be significant (in the low millions for larger municipalities) and they could be granted statutory place-based responsibilities, leaving the “big ticket” policy areas like education and social services to a higher tier of local government.
• Councillors would probably need to work part-time in the same way as existing county councillors – that means an annual allowance and/or expenses. This may result in fewer uncontested seats and vacancies, making it more attractive to prospective candidates and easier for parties to find them.
  
• Political parties would have to think carefully about who they put forward for election to a municipal council. It would hopefully be the end of sticking time-serving local party stalwarts in a community council seat for the sake of it.
• It would allow a rationalisation of community governance where they become focused on a defined community/district (i.e. the current Barry Town Council) rather than a single suburb or outlying village.
• They would be allowed to be “political”; the corporate body system can be abandoned (if deemed necessary to do so) and candidates/parties/groups would need to come up with carefully thought-through policies and budget plans.
• They would certainly hire full-time staff (likely transfered from the existing unitary authorities), meaning more professionalism behind the scenes and better control of things like finances. They would have similar requirements to existing unitary authorities on webcasting, bilingualism, publication of documents, job-sharing etc.
• There would be fewer bodies/organisations to be externally audited each year, possibly leading to more detailed investigations and closer monitoring of finances.
• School governors could be replaced with school boards at the municipal level, potentially improving transparency and cutting the number of bodies and unfilled positions at community level.

Disadvantages:

• The loss of a corporate body-like system may lead to more infighting and grandstanding, possibly making it harder to get things done than in some existing town & community councils.
• Unless the overall number of councillors is kept under control, it could work out to be a more expensive form of community governance than town & community councils – particularly if municipal councillors were paid an allowance and councils hired full-time staff & officers.
• There’s a risk that in the intervening period between town & community councils being abolished and municipal councils being formed, legal issues could arise over assets, liabilities, pension contributions etc. The danger is that they end up taking on too much, too quickly (more in Part VIII).
• Municipal councils may be too big to properly represent communities that have a stronger voice through a community council (i.e. a small village on the outskirts of a large town that ends up becoming part of a town-focused municipality).
• The possible introduction of decision-making boards tied to municipal councils (i.e. school boards, licensing boards, leisure service boards) could take away the operational independence of individual services.
• Bigger budgets and more responsibilities mean more opportunities for things to go wrong. There could be just as much confusion over “who does what” as there is now.

Municipal Mayor-Council

The advantages and disadvantages would be similar to municipal councils. The main difference would be that instead of the council appointing a leader or executive committee or running themselves as a corporate body, a Mayor (or Co-Mayors) would be elected separately to act as the political leader and Chief Executive of the municipality (Part IX).

Advantages:

• There’s a direct link between the political leader and the electorate. Nobody would be in any doubt who would be “in charge” in each municipality, improving accountability and visibility (in principle) and giving talented local politicians – including Independents – something to aim for.
• The number of municipal councillors could be cut even further if most day-to-day political and management decisions were made by an elected Mayor – saving money and capping the number of politicians overall.
• A Mayor would act as both a political and ceremonial figurehead while the municipal council would be able to focus on scrutiny. This could improve the “gene pool” of politicians coming up the ranks from local government as they would have a better range and quality of political experience. For example, chairing committees could be an expected duty of a municipal councillor not a paid role in its own right.
• Elections for the Mayor and the council could be staggered to ensure things don’t fall into a routine and to spice things up a little (i.e. mayoral elections could be held halfway through a municipal council term).
• Co-Mayors could be introduced allowing the role to be job-shared and improve representation (i.e. one male, one female) and mayors could be term-limited to ensure turnover.
  

Disadvantages:

• Having a single person acting as a figurehead and political leader may attract populists who put forward unrealistic plans to gain votes.
• While the municipal council would perform a scrutiny role, their work may end up drowned out by a “grandstanding” mayor.
• Mayoral elections could end up being seen as “more important” than the municipal council one (particularly if they’re staggered).
• While a mechanism for removing a mayor/co-mayor can be included, more general disputes between a mayor and the council could impact the efficiency and day-to-day running of the municipality’s services (i.e. disagreement over a budget leading to US-style “shutdowns”).
  
• We don’t have a tradition of directly-elected mayors in Wales and where they’ve been proposed in the past they’ve often been rejected. We love the idea of a “committee” making decisions; trying to impose directly-elected mayors – even those with limited powers in a municipality – may meet resistance.