Commission on the role of local councillors

Following discussion with elected Members with the Association of North East Councils, the following points are made
• Practical and administrative support from within councils on a range of things including letter writing would be helpful as it would free councillors’ time up for ward and other matters;
• Mentoring schemes that are developed as part of Members’ own personal development plans would be a valuable support, especially for new elected Members;
• Mentoring from colleagues from another authority, possibly from a different type of authority, would be useful, e.g. mentoring of a District Councillor by a Councillor from a Unitary for example;
• Personal development plans for new and longer-serving Councillors should be introduced widely to help Members fully understand the skills required to undertake their role. Such plans need to have a great deal of flexibility to accommodate Members’ own preferences for learning and to accommodate Members’ other pressures: work-life balance;
• Designated Members Support Officers were seen as good practice, but not all councils had them. It was noted that Members also needed support from officers across councils’ service departments in order to solve ward problems – awareness raising with officers would therefore be useful;
A clear explanation of the role of Members, including their roles on external bodies (e.g. Trustees), was seen as vital. An understanding of the legal implications of becoming a trustee was felt to be an essential part of that as Members are often unaware of potential ramifications of decisions they may be party to as a trustee. A national indemnity scheme for trustees would be helpful;

It is important that councillors develop their understanding of participatory forms of democracy alongside their representative role and work with local people to champion new forms of community consultations and feedback.

RECOGNITION

Councillors divide into groups. Those who are creating a job for themselves and integrate with the officers. Those who wish to play a service role but are limited in experience or training to their local environment.
However it is the third group that could do more. They have retired from National or International affairs, are in some cases more intelligent, more experienced and better qualified than the officers.
This group of non executive directors is often ignored by the current system.
It is because they have more challenge to offer that they are sidelined in these days when hype is more significant than fact.

David Lawrence

I am a totally new councillor (and, to make things worse, I was elected Mayor for the year at our first meeting!).

What would have helped me this evening:

A list of all the committees that councillors have to be on with minimum/maximum numbers on it and a note of who sat on each committee last year.

A copy of the current budget and last year's income and expenditure.

A list of all the outside organisations' meetings that councillors attend in their capacity as councillor with some notes on exactly what each of the organisations does and why it is felt necessary that councillors should be on them (for example, we have 2 traffic committees, 2 police committees - do we need to be on all 4 or 1, 2 3 or none.

A good Town Clerk!