Peter Black

I have just caught up with the recommendations of the 'Independent Councillors Commisssion'. What a load of nonsense. On past form however, the real worry has to be that some of these off-the-wall ideas will be accepted by Government Ministers just so that they can justify the exercise and because they have form in constantly fiddling with local government management and organisation.

When this report lands on Hazel Blears' desk she would be well-advised to treat it with extreme caution. Labour should have learnt by now that sometimes it is better to leave things alone rather than implement ill-thought out and misguided reforms. This is one of those times.

So what is being proposed? Well firstly, they want to pay Councillors more and offer a pay-off to those who lose their seats. That would be very difficult to defend in the present financial climate. Such a scheme would need to be justified in terms of extra workload and responsibility, yet the Government is intent on concentrating power in fewer hands and emasculating the freedom of local Councils to act differently.

Secondly, they want to introduce a national framework for allowances for councillors with minimum levels according to size and type of authority but with powers for Local Authority Standards Committees to suspend and claw back part of the basic allowance when councillors measurably fail to fulfil their role description. It sounds good but where do the voters figure in this? Surely they are the ones who determine the job description of their elected representatives. How can this be divorced from the political process? We have already seen the standards framework being used to persecute individual Councillors for petty political reasons, what is to say this mechanism will not be used in the same way?

Thirdly, the Commission want to introduce incentives to vote in local elections such as offering entry to a free lottery. Talk of dumbing down. If they really want to improve the engagement between local Councils and their electors then they need to actually empower people, give them a greater say in the decision-making process in their own area and ensure that when they vote the outcome reflects how they have collectively cast their ballot.

Fourthly, they want to set up a dedicated fund from public money for political parties to spend at local level for projects to improve the recruitment, training and selection of candidates linked to enhancing diversity of local councillors. If you are going to publicly fund political parties then say so, don't hide it behind fancy schemes.

They also want public service broadcasters to fulfil their remit to facilitate civic understanding, including better coverage of local government and to introduce changes to the "far-reaching" restrictions that prevent council employees standing as councillors or engaging in political activity. If you want better to educate people then you have to do it yourself. That is not the role of broadcasters and other media. They are there to give people the news, to entertain and to make a profit. Trying to change that by giving them a remit smacks just a little of manipulation.

As for changing the rules on political restriction, I would need to see the details. However, they are there for a reason and that is to protect the impartiality of officers who give advice to Councillors. Fiddle with that at your peril.

Finally, there is the big one, term limits on Councillors. Why just Councillors? Why not MPs as well? Could it be that Parliament would not tolerate such a reform? It is for the voters to determine when a Councillor has gone on too long, not some artificially imposed rule that has no regard to the individual circumstances of the community or individual concerned.

There is also the nonsense of abolishing by-elections. How can you argue on one hand that you want Councils to engage with voters and then on the other deny them a say in who represents them. Again the test must be whether such a reform would be considered acceptable for Parliament. I think not. It is bizarre and anti-democratic. It should not even be given the time of day.

Of course out of 61 recommendations there must be some that make sense. I would support lowering the voting age to 16 for example. I would also support promoting the role of councillors and the enhanced skills they bring to workplaces to employers and compensation for small businesses whose employees have to be absent from work for councillor duties. However, I am afraid that the commonsense ideas will be lost amongst the headline grabbing batty ones.

Normally, one would rely on Ministers to sort the wheat from the chaff. My fear however is that they and their civil servants have demonstrated again and again that they do not understand how local democracy works and that they believe they can use Councils as a testing ground for some really silly proposals. When that happens it is local services that suffer, along with the confidence of the electorate in their Councillors and their Council. That is a sure-fire way to damage our democracy. Surely it is time that we said enough is enough.