Last week, I went to visit an authority in Blogshire. Blogshire is in one of the best-rated English regions for local government performance, according to the Audit Commission, and indeed, its residents.
But at Blogshire itself, this is not the case. As I looked at its performance data, several factors stuck out.
Whereas its high-performing neighbours are all under a long-term majority party control, in Blogshire, the authority is strongly contested every year, and each of the major parties has alternately had control by one or two seats.
Every year, both political parties hammer it out on the doorstep. And when we asked residents how they found out about what the council was doing, a high percentage mentioned political pamphlets, rather than the institution’s own newsletters.
Small wonder then, that with a mass of contested information about the authority’s performance, residents are rather less confident in their council’s abilities than elsewhere.
When elected members are cheerfully rubbishing their own authority’s performance in the press, it is perhaps not surprising that it is hard to gain public trust. Local government is less trusted than local police forces or local hospitals, partly for this reason, despite being more democratically accountable.
Of course, politics is part of the warp and weft of UK local government, but one does wonder whether it would ever be possible for opposing sides to be clear about what they do agree on.
When I asked Blogshire members what they actually disagreed over in terms of what they wanted for their community, little was forthcoming.
While politics is fundamentally about contesting ideas, elections by thirds make this much much worse.
If we abolished them, Blogshire’s – and local government’s reputation overall could only improve. n
Protecting the public realm without shutting it down
As Martyn's Law approaches, this free special report from LocalGov and Hill & Smith sets out how councils can protect public spaces without shutting them down.
