State of democracy in Liverpool is slammed
Jun 29 2009 by Marcia Kelly, Liverpool Daily Post
A MAJOR inquiry into the state of democracy in Liverpool today reports a lack of diversity, poor behaviour at council meetings and a glut of obstacles to attracting people into local government.
A draft version of the Report of the Liverpool Commission, obtained by the Daily Post ahead of its official launch today, highlights the fact that, of 90 city councillors, only two were from racial minorities.
It found the over-use of jargon, outdated modes of communicating with the electorate and the conduct of councillors at meetings were all partly to blame for the upkeep of stereotypes of local democracy.
Cllr Alan Dean told the commission that “behaviour at the council meeting was poor, it needs to be more mature and we need to look at new approaches to deal with it effectively.”
Many will welcome recommendations that the council should invest in new technology, such as web casts of meetings and the use of social networking sites.
Increasing the involvement of under-represented groups will also be a key task.
But the report will not meet with universal approval, as one councillor last night said the whole process had been “a farce” and a waste of time and public money.
Liberal leader Cllr Steve Radford said he felt the Commission, chaired by Liverpool JMU vice chancellor Michael Brown, had attempted to meddle with the workings of political parties by trying to introduce US-style candidate selections.
The report recommended that “the principle of primary selection of candidates has the potential to create a more diverse councillor population that reflects the demographics of the local population.” It encourages parties to implement this within their candidate selection process
But Cllr Radford said: “It was an utter disgrace, a farce and a waste of money. It has not come up with one single meaningful or substantial proposal, and the only one it has come up with was unenforceable.
“Primaries can’t be funded by the state, so why should parties take on a function they have limited resources for and would contravene the rules of the Electoral Commission?
“The other issue they’ve not even looked at was how we could introduce proportional representation onto the city council.
“The whole thing was academic waffle and it has glazed over the real issues.”
The report heard evidence from councillors, officers and representatives of the media. BBC Radio Merseyside presenter Roger Phillips spoke of how “the local media and the city council do not serve each other well”.
He added: “Under the new structure a lot of councillors seem disenfranchised and there is a lot of in-fighting between the political parties at council meetings which doesn’t allow a mature view of the council to be put forward in the media.”
City council leader Cllr Warren Bradley told the Commission he felt that “people don’t really understand the role of a local councillor and would probably say they do ‘very little for me’.
“We need to communicate better about how we do things. Engaging with young people is particularly difficult and we need to find better ways of communicating and look at using social networking sites or by using emails or texts.”
Labour group leader Cllr Joe Anderson, who admitted council meetings “could get a little heated”, said there needed to be a “consensus for change, we need to look at how we engage and communicate with the people of Liverpool and get the message across.”.
