No County for Young Men – or Women

Vote for me: is "old, white men" ageist, or an accurate reflection of the Welsh councillor demographic?

THE Public Service Ombudsman for Wales continues to investigate me for me for an alleged breach of the Local Government Code of Conduct, for saying that some Members of Swansea Council were “past it”.

I am happy to defend my views in any democratic forum, the court of public opinion or, in the worst case scenario, Her Majesty’s Courts if a defamation action were ever brought against me. However, what I cannot fathom in this instance is what on earth the Ombudsman is doing in investigation a case which clearly falls in the “party political” bracket. Is the Ombudsman now to become an arbiter of legitimate robust political debate? Are elected politicians now to be hauled before bureaucrats and office clerks to answer for their opinions?

Before I am castigated once more by Age Concern Cymru for being discriminatory, I would like to point out the important bit of my quote that was overlooked. I actually said that a lot of many of Swansea’s councillors could be described as “being over 60 and past it”. The conjunction is rather important here. There may be many 60 or more year olds who are past it and many who are not; conversely, there might be many under 60 years of age whose faculties are equally below par or who are firing on all cylinders.

It is true that while both the councillors who have complained to the Ombudsman about me are not exactly “past it”, the abilities of both could be called into question. One, the ex-Cabinet Member for Social Services, was sacked for the way children’s services were delivered, while the other continues to preside over an e-government “modernisation” programme yet to hit even 40% of its original targets.

By any stretch of the definition, Swansea Council is absurdly unrepresentative of the City & County of Swansea in terms of age profile, gender (where only 22 out of 72 Members are female) and in terms of employment patterns (only 18 out of 72 Members list any form of employment or business interests on the Register of Interests).

Dig a little deeper and you’ll find more evidence to support my claim of how out of touch my local authority is with the citizens of Swansea. Out of the 72 councillors, only eight are aged under 40. In terms of Swansea’s population, those aged 18-59 represent just over 55% of the general public, whereas the number of councillors under 60 equates to just under 39% of the total council. The number of councillors aged over 60 is a whopping 61.1%, or 44  out of 72 members. The figures for the general public show that only 21.36% of the population are aged between 60 and 84.

The image of “old, white men” running local authorities prompted the Welsh Assembly Government to offer some councillors a cash incentive if they stood down in the 2004 election. In 2004, the average age of councillors in Wales was 61. A total of 79 members, from the eight local authorities that participated in the scheme, took up the offer. It cost the taxpayer more than £1.6m.

And the result? The average age of the Welsh councillor is now estimated at 59 (following a survey of 20 of the 22 Welsh authorities in 2008). Two years lower than in 2004. Was it really worth the cost, bearing in mind that the proportion of male to female councillors across Wales is still appalling, with just over 75% being male?

There is meant to be a new “mentoring scheme”, encouraging new blood to come through the system. The Step Up Cymru project, to be launched in October, is a joint initiative between WLGA and WAG and it seeks to build on the success of similar concepts such as Operation Black Vote, in raising awareness and building trust between politicians and under-represented groups. In this instance, Step Up Cymru is designed to give people who might otherwise not stand for election the chance to see what it is that local councillors do. If this is a way of encouraging a whole new group in society to stand for elections, then I am sorry to say that the idea is stillborn.

How can this new scheme, as well intentioned as it might be, hope to get new blood into our council chambers? All it will be doing is giving people an insight into the world of the existing cohort of councillors – the old, white men.

So, why is it, that whilst the WLGA and WAG have recognised that there is a problem with our local authorities being run predominately by retired, white men, that nothing is being done to tackle a significant constraint on the recruitment of younger and employed people into the ranks of our elected councillors – the timing of the meetings?

I am still getting stick from opponents in Swansea who peddle the line that unless you attend the Constitution Working Group or Members Development Sub Committee at 10am, in middle of week, you’re obviously not doing your job as a councillor. The fact that most of the councillors appear to have little grasp of any policy agendas wider than the pavements in their wards is beside the point. Until local authorities can recruit councillors who can really hold the professional officers to account, there will be no such thing as local democracy. I believe that officers run rings round most of the councillors at the moment – in Swansea, at least. But I understand it is not only here.

Most of our councillors across Wales are retired, unemployed or live a life of leisure, out of touch with modern working practices and seemingly wholly unaware of wider policy agendas. Projects which are far from successful get strung along for years, because most councillors don’t have the first idea as what questions to ask about measuring success, let alone the skills to understand the answers that they are given by local bureaucrats.

We need accountants, lawyers, successful business leaders and other public and private sector professionals and managers to join the ranks of elected members in our council chambers. We need people with the skills, abilities and relevant and contemporary experience to hold to account officers who spend billions of pounds of tax payers money across Wales.

But we will only have this when council meetings are more meaningful, don’t go on so long in pointless repetition and meet at times of day designed around those who work for a living.