The democratic deficit that leads to record levels of voter distrust in government and politicians generally is even more pronounced when it comes to local elections. Turnout is much lower for council elections than general elections - the May 2021 South Tyneside Council (STC) elections were boycotted by almost two thirds of the 114,000 citizens registered to vote. While overall turnout was 35.6%, some wards recorded catastrophically low votes - the Biddick and All Saints Labour candidate was elected on a 25% turnout.
There are built-in roadblocks to proper democracy at local council level. STC, like similar authorities, only elects one third of its councillors at any one time meaning voters are denied the opportunity to remove the ruling group in one go...if that’s what they ever wanted to do.
However, that’s only part of the story.
Central government has a tight grip on what local authorities can and cannot do. Key policies such as education and social care are determined by Westminster as is the amount of funding councils can spend in these areas. But the real story is that the total amount of money STC, and others, receive has plummeted by an astonishing 16% since 2010, when austerity to pay for the bail out of the bankers kicked in. Unlike central government, councils cannot borrow to make up the shortfall. By law they must balance their budget each year. They can draw down from reserves but only once, so STC has passed on the spending cuts without any resistance and the results are plain for all to see - significant deterioration in/and loss of services.
Internal democracy at town hall level has also suffered. The present ‘cabinet system’ enables a small group to control council business without effective scrutiny and certainly little accountability. So while 44,000 of you signed a petition opposed to the controversial decision to run down our hospital, 6630 signed against the closure of South Shields School and over 1000 against the continued destruction of our trees, there has been precious little consultation and certainly no rethinking by the ruling group.
What should CAST campaign for when it comes to creating a democratic framework for local government? In my view, we should fight for more independence from central government, giving councils more powers to raise money locally and the possibility of borrowing to fund deficits, the same as Westminster. Councils could then shape services and policies to reflect local priorities. Clearly that doesn’t happen at present! Planning decisions, for example, are shrouded in secrecy and heavily influenced by developers and/or corporate interests.
So, what about...
There are no doubt many other ways councils could be made more democratic - the bar has been set very low! These are some of the demands we could put to all candidates standing in the May elections. Let’s see where they stand on making democracy a priority.
Read our series on how South Tyneside Council works here
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