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The arguments this past year about the Sustainable Communities Act have got me thinking about the role of councillors in local democracy. The Sustainable Communities Act was written to empower communities - you know, those hard-to-pin-down groups of people who care about some aspect of their local area. Cycle safety, say, or the state of a local high street. It was meant to include people who aren't usually included - not just defined by usual minority terms, but that vast majority of people who don't vote, don't come to boring council meetings, and aren't normally made to feel that they can make an improvement they have in mind.
A lot of politicians have this idea that, having been elected, they may now "represent" their "community". Where they want wider input, the underfunded, jargon-cursed processes councils opt for exclude all but a small clique of people who are then dismissed as "the usual suspects". When faced with a process such as that afforded by the Sustainable Communities Act, their instinct is to let councillors take the lead, and make do with more underfunded cliques.
So do our councillors represent us? Southwark has 63 councillors who try to represent 278,000 people spread over 25 square miles; that's about 4,400 people per councillor. Maybe that's a quite good? How do we compare to other countries?
Well the UK is one of the least well represented democracies, with an average of 2,605 citizens per elected official. In France it's 116 citizens; Germany it's 250. Southwark looks pretty impossible at 4,400! Look at page 16 of this Big Bang Localism pamphlet for more facts and figures.
So if we're not very well represented, no matter how hard our councillors try, are we getting active? Well voter turnout in Southwark's last local elections (2006) varied from a barely credible 51.6% in the leafy (Dulwich) Village ward to a depressing 26.6% in Grange ward. Not many of us are choosing our representatives!
Councillors need to remember that they too are community activists, or perhaps once were. They just have some useful extra tools in their belt, powers given to them by those who bothered to vote.
Their relationship with local citizens, especially those bothered to become involved as community activists, should be one of cooperation and empowerment. Not only is this the right thing to do in a country that gives so little power to ordinary people, it would also help them get things done on the ground.
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