13 April 2007
A government commission examining the barriers to becoming a councillor will consider salary hikes and accreditation for future town hall leaders, its chair has revealed.
Dame Jane Roberts, chair of the Councillors Commission, told Public Finance that she is 'open to all workable ideas' as she launched the consultation stage of her team's study on April 10.
Roberts has been asked to investigate ways to improve the make-up of council chambers amid concerns that town halls are still dominated by white, middle-class men in their 50s.
The former leader of the London Borough of Camden will examine why so few women, youngsters and ethnic minority people stand in England's local elections. Fewer than a third of councillors are women, just 4% are from ethnic minorities, and the average age is 58.
Past studies have exposed barriers such as the dominance of white males; unsociable town hall business hours proving a problem for mothers; low remuneration; and poor consultation with local ethnic minorities as reasons for under-representation.
Local government's traditional reliance on 'gifted amateurs' – people with other full-time jobs – is also deemed problematic by some experts, who have called for more full-time senior members to be paid directly by local authorities.
'Remuneration is a big issue,' Roberts told PF. 'We will look at the idea of introducing more full-time councillors on higher salaries, but my personal view is that could narrow the pool of talent that we're trying to expand.
'It could also reinforce the common view that there is a hard-to-penetrate “political class” operating in Britain.'
The answer, Roberts suggested, could be a flexible system of remuneration or benefits allocated according to a councillor's needs: for example, support for those who need help with childcare.
Accreditation for future elected politicians will also be considered as a method of widening town halls' skills base and preparing elected officials for office.
However, Roberts said she was keen to avoid grooming councillors with 'identikit' education backgrounds.
Perhaps the biggest struggle facing many town halls would be increasing the number of black and ethnic minority councillors to accurately reflect their communities. But Roberts, a former Labour councillor, claimed that authorities could take some simple steps.
'In my own party, we “talent spotted” potential BME candidates and simply asked if they would become a councillor,' she said. Over a quarter of councillors do the job because somebody asks them, but we realised that obvious BME candidates had not been approached in the past,' she said.
The initiative worked: in 2002, Camden increased its BME representation from one councillor to six. Other local political parties have successfully advertised candidates, Roberts said.
Launching the commission earlier this year, Local Government Secretary Ruth Kelly said: 'There are some 20,000 councillors in the UK. They are a vital part of our grassroots democracy but clearly this democracy will benefit if they are more representative of the communities they serve.'
Roberts will report back to Kelly in November.
PFapr2007
