With more than a thousand new councillors taking their seats following the English local elections — many with no prior experience of local government — Colin Copus, Emeritus Professor of Local Politics at De Montfort University and Visiting Professor Ghent University, reflects on the challenges ahead for new members, officers and the councils they must now run together.

Don't panic — new isn't the same as incompetent

Now the dust has settled on the English local elections, councils across the country are welcoming well over a thousand new councillors – many of whom have had no experience of local government, its complexities, its decision-making and the issues it faces; nor will they have much knowledge of what has gone before, or why. Most frustrating for new councillors will be the clash of expectation and reality and the myriad of constraints on them and on local government as a whole.

But, let's quickly dispense with one rather trite reaction to the election results – shock, horror, many have never been councillors before – how will they cope? That reaction is an elitist one based on the idea that only those who have been councillors (or held political power anywhere for that matter) should be councillors – hardly a democratic point of view.

No, new councillors won't always know the details of local government or have extensive knowledge of operational aspects, but as laymen, councillors are not expected – and shouldn't be expected to be experts; rather, they bring their own external experiences, political viewpoint and acumen to issues confronting their councils. In doing so they will need support in identifying what is and isn't possible and with the latter how to get as close as possible to what's not possible.

Getting up to speed — and fast

New councillors will have questions about who does what and whom they need to contact about the issues they face; they will need to know how to navigate a complex organisational structure; what resources are available to them; and how the political side of the council works. All this, and much more, needs to be done within 21 days – a tight timescale at the best of times, but with hosts of new members and even coalitions needing to be formed, it is close to being unreasonable and unnecessarily rushed.

An additional challenge is that many new councillors will lack colleagues in a party group who, if they have not run the council itself, will have had experiences of being a councillor that will be of value to their new colleagues and so ease them into their role, even if they have just taken control for the first time. Those longer-standing members will lend their experience, support and understanding of the council and the issues it faces to new members in their group. The new member will have known existing councillors before their election and gleaned from them an understanding of issues and processes, which helps their maturation process as a councillor. Imagine, that such supportive pre-existing councillors are not there and the new members are not just councillors for the first time, but are also the controlling group – where will they turn for support and advice?

Change is coming — but what kind?

New councillors and administrations will want to change things: policies, procedures, practices, the way things are done, strategies, budgets, spending, targets and priorities. Sometimes the desire to change comes from a deep-seated political persuasion and world view; sometimes it comes from an observation made before being elected, that things could just be better. Either way – change is the order of the day. Change can be reasonably predicted in some cases especially as it is a constant theme of political campaigns. We have a good idea of what the Conservative and Labour Parties and Liberal Democrats mean when they say 'change' and with those parties being well established in the local political landscape, their manifestos and campaigns provide real clues as to what to expect.

But, the new kids on the block – Reform UK and the Green Party – are slightly less easy to predict when it comes to change. While these new councillors and their groups will be explaining to officers what they want to achieve, officers will need to provide the supportive and constructive advice that will not be available from colleague councillors who have sat on the council before – especially when a new group may have gone from '0' to control overnight. Like civil servants, the strength of council officers is that they are – or at least should be – impartial and their political preferences and party support as a citizen should not interfere with the way they support and work with any party group. Leave your own politics at the town hall door has always been, and should always be, the mantra for officers in constructing and maintaining good working relationships with members.

Building the member-officer relationship

Developing early working relationships between new members and officers will help with the detailed business of exploring priorities, policy preferences and in renegotiating the balance of power and influence between new members and administrations and officers. The old adage used to be that officers serve all members equally – ask back-benchers, even in controlling groups if they think that's the case and there will be some surprising answers.

Then there's all the work-a-day stuff about constitutions, cabinets, scrutiny, committees and the resources available for councillors – often far less than many councillors expect and nothing like the offices that staff and support MPs. New councillors may well want to augment existing support and rightly so and responses about established budgets and pre-existing policies are likely to add to new members' frustrations and be a source for tension between officers and members.

Beware the politics of the vanquished

Finally, be prepared for councillors from defeated administrations to make life as difficult as possible for the new ruling group. While that is understandable – it's politics after all – it has to be done with political skill and effective scrutiny. Watch out for countless code of conduct complaints and the 'he said, she said' approach by defeated administrations – these must be handled with a heavy dose of common sense and not the idea that 'all complaints are valid and must be investigated': no they're not and no they don't have to be and those which don't will be obvious. Weeding out frivolous and politically motivated complaints and telling the complainants politely, to grow up and change tactics is necessary – otherwise considerable time, effort and resources are going to be wasted.

All this gives officers considerable influence and power, but as that great political philosopher – Spiderman's Uncle Ben – once said: with great power comes great responsibility.