“Renaissance of Local Government?” – A post-meeting round-up
Posted: June 25, 2012 Filed under: Events, Meetings Leave a comment »Thank you to all those members of the public who attended our “Renaissance of Local Government?” meeting last Friday at Sheffield Town Hall and to Sheffield City Council for joint-hosting such a successful event to which more than 50 people came.
Special thanks go to our speakers Clive Betts MP, Peter Facey (Director, Unlock Democracy) and Howard Sykes of the Local Government Association, for coming to Sheffield and speaking on the subject of decentralising power and decision making from Westminster and for answering the many questions asked of them by the audience.
Event: Renaissance of Local Government?
Posted: June 7, 2012 Filed under: Consultation, Events | Tags: consultation, devolution, local democracy, sheffield, sheffield city council 1 Comment »Renaissance of Local Government?
Friday 22nd June 2012, 6.00pm – 7.45 pm at Town Hall, Sheffield
Isn't it time for councils to be more than agents of central government?
In collaboration with Sheffield City Council, Sheffield for Democracy is hosting an event to discuss proposals to strengthen the independence of local government.
The last fifty years have seen a growing centralisation of power in England with local government having less autonomy and becoming more and more local administration of central government policy.
The Westminster Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform has made some radical proposals which could change this and are consulting on them. This meeting is an opportunity to hear about these changes and their implications, and to discuss how they might improve our democracy.
Speakers include:
- Clive Betts MP,
- Howard Sykes (Local Government Association and ex leader of Oldham Council), and
- Peter Facey (Director of Unlock Democracy) will help us explore the proposed changes.
Both Sheffield City Council and Sheffield for Democracy will be making (separate) submissions and this discussion will inform our thinking.
You are invited to attend. Entry is free, however places are limited.
To reserve a place, please contact Richard Cannon either by email via richard.cannon@sheffield.gov.
Further information on the draft code for central and local government can be found at http://www.parliament.uk/
Sheffield for Democracy welcomes supporters of all political parties or none. We want to engage and encourage greater participation of the public in democracy at a local level in Sheffield and encourage young people to become more interested in politics by making them aware of how relevant it is to their lives.
Report on May’s Steering Group meeting
Posted: June 4, 2012 Filed under: Meetings, Minutes, Report | Tags: community assemblies, elected mayors, individual electoral registration, individual voter registration, lords, lords reform, steering group Leave a comment »This is a brief report on the Steering Group Meeting of Sheffield for Democracy, held at the Old Queen’s head, Sheffield on Sunday 20th May 2012 between 3pm and 5pm.
Lobbying and House of Lords reform
We began our meeting with an update on both Lobbying and House of Lords reform. The group believes that the current proposals on lobbying reform are too feeble. It was noted that House of Lords reform was included in the Queen’s Speech.
Lack of proportionality in local election results
As mentioned in a previous post, Vicky Seddon has written a letter in the Sheffield Telegraph about the recent local election results and Proportional Representation (PR), which appeared in the paper 10/05/12. If local elections were carried out using a system of Proportional Representation they would better reflect the wishes of the voters and give us a much broader-based Sheffield City Council. The exact outcome of a local election using PR may vary according to which system of PR is chosen and number of candidates in the multi-member wards and also people may change how they vote under PR, with some voters having less need for tactical voting. Northern Ireland uses the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system for its local and Assembly elections, as does Scotland (since 3rd May 2007, which came about due to the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament). The London Assembly, Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament all use the Additional Member System (AMS) for their elections. European Parliament election in England, Wales and Scotland use a Closed List System, whereas Northern Ireland uses STV to elect their region’s representatives.
Elected Mayors
Sheffield had the biggest vote against having a directly-elected Mayor, 65% against & 35% for. Doncaster voted yes to retaining its existing directly-elected Mayor (62% for & 38% against). Bristol voted for having a directly-elected mayor (53.3% for & 46.7% against). (Birmingham, Bradford, Coventry, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Nottingham, Wakefield voted against having a directly-elected Mayor).
Public meeting on local government
There was an update on the arrangements for a future public meeting on changing the relationship between local government and Parliament, to make local government more independent of central control. More information about that will be published in due course.
Community Assemblies
We had a recap on Community Assemblies from Alan Kewley. It was suggested that Community Assemblies:
- haven’t come up to expectations and need reform to do the job better;
- vary in terms of structure and public engagement depending upon the area;
- need more powers to make their own decisions on spending, etc.;
- need to have smaller ward-level forums, which were part of the original proposals but never put into practice.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
We had an update regarding the latest proposals for individual voter registration rather than the household voter registration that we have at present. Current proposal for Individual mandatory voter registration instead of the previous idea of individual voluntary voter registration is welcomed. A household canvass is to take place in spring 2014, deferred from Autumn 2013, in order to ensure more people are registered. The constituency boundary changes to create more equal electoral districts will take place in 2015 and are in the same bill.
Next Meeting
The next meeting will be on Sunday 8th July at 3pm at the Old Queen’s Head, Sheffield.
Comment: Somes ideas for creating truly independent local government
Posted: June 16, 2012 | Author: Richard | Filed under: Comment | Tags: council elections, devolution, local democracy, referendums | Leave a comment »I think that this consultation is very important and that all people interested in local democracy should consider responding to it. It is important because currently we don’t actually have a right to have a council or any local government, as they are not constitutional bodies, they are merely statutory. This means that Parliament could radically change or abolish any or all councils should it be minded to do so, centralising power and making decision making even further removed from the people those decisions affect. We should respond to this opportunity to safeguard and strengthen our existing councils and to seek to bring decision making even closer to the people where practicable and so I have decided to write about my thoughts on how local government and representation should look and operate. I hope to comment on the individual proposals within the draft code itself in a future post.
The Sustainable Communities Act 2010 and Localism Act 2011 have both tried to make decision making more local, offering a bit more power and responsibility to local government and communities. This is to be welcomed, however any genuine re-invigoration of democracy must begin with all current arrangements and institutions being available for reform, abolition or replacement. The default position must not be with one person or body making all decisions but with all decisions being made by every person directly. What institutions we build and their powers must be derived from thereon, with the express consent of the people. What follows are my suggestions for a new democratic settlement between government, be it local or national, communities and individuals.
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