02 February 2007
The forthcoming Commission for Equality and Human Rights should review political parties' methods of selecting candidates for local elections, according to a think-tank.
The Local Government Information Unit says an effort to make prospective members more representative of the communities they serve is essential to reverse the decline in the number of people standing for election.
It wants the commission, which comes into being in October, to scrutinise the candidate selection policies used by the political parties and draw up equality criteria.
Ed Cox, author of the LGIU report Frontline councillor 2017: empowering a new generation, said political parties should not be exempt from the type of scrutiny that other organisations must embrace.
The national standards drawn up by the commission could cover the methods they use to recruit candidates, for example where they place advertisements, or even set targets for diversity, although Cox expressed caution about such an approach.
But he said that, in view of the political parties' lack of progress on this issue, they needed to be subject to rigorous scrutiny. 'It's important that councillors reflect the diversity of their communities so that all sections of the community have a voice in the local democratic debate.'
The report, published on January 30, also calls for backbench councillors to be given substantial new powers to scrutinise council leaders and executives and other local service providers.
Local select committees comprising backbench members, modelled on those in Parliament, should be set up and granted new powers to call witnesses and compel disclosure of evidence.
PFfeb2007
