How Does The Council Work?
RA Councillor Edward Rowe explains...
Good simple question. I wish there was a good simple answer but let's try.
Which Council are we talking about? There are two Councils of course. The County Council headquartered in Kingston is responsible for things like education, roads, social services, libraries, trading standards, and some environmental matters such as waste disposal and wildlife protection, throughout Surrey. The one I'm going deal with, that I sit on, is Elmbridge Borough Council based in Esher. This Council handles matters within the Borough such as planning, leisure and community affairs, the local economy, licensing, car parks and cemeteries, rubbish collection and, through choice, the provision of many services for the elderly. It comprises an elected Council with a Cabinet and Committee structure, plus a permanent staff.The wards in Elmbridge each elect councillors on a rolling basis for terms of four years: sixty councillors in all, of whom currently 27 are Conservatives, 25 are the various Residents' Associations and similar groups, and the remainder are Liberal Democrats. This is 'the Council' that holds ultimate civic authority and responsibility for the Borough.
After ward elections each year the full Council elects a Leader of the Council from among their number. At the moment this is a Conservative, as the Residents Group lost a couple of seats last May. The Council also elects a Mayor and a deputy who is normally expected to take over as Mayor the following year. These prestigious, largely representational posts are by convention shared round the elected groups in turn. The Mayor is the titular head of the Council, but is not the Leader of the Council. The Leader enjoys considerable power, selecting colleagues to form a Cabinet of 10 persons, all being Conservatives at present. Other committees such as the Overview and Scrutiny Committees, the Planning, Licensing and Environmental Affairs Committees are shared out on a proportional basis between the elected groups.
The Cabinet effectively sets the agenda for Council business and farms out tasks to the other Committees, which report back with recommendations to the Cabinet for decision. These Committees can add items to their own agenda. The Cabinet can take decisions at that point on some issues, if there are no resource implications. Otherwise they send their recommended decisions to the full Council. This cycle, from Cabinet to Committees, back to Cabinet, then if necessary to the full Council, takes place five or six times a year. There are particular procedures for Planning and Licensing, and the planning process will be dealt with in a future article.
At the bottom of it all is the perpetual quest for Value for Money. Even the Cabinet can't get its pet schemes through without referring them to the open scrutiny of full Council if they have resource implications. Any proposal to change what's done or how to do it has to be accompanied by a statement of costs, prepared by the permanent executive officers. Such proposals are subject to a challenging process. If you want to achieve this kind of change you have to persuade other members of the Council to support your proposal. The essence is to pick issues where there is a real possibility of support from both the officers and the Council, to research them well and persuade key portfolio holders to endorse them. If you haven't got or can't get budgetary provision for the proposal within the 3-year rolling Financial Strategy Document (voted by the Full Council) you're usually wasting time. Wasting everyone's time is as sure a way to prejudice one's chances as jumping up and down being obnoxious to colleagues. While residents can phone their councillors and vent their feelings (and you do), your councillors must remain calm and focused at all times...! But then, who said it was easy?
For day-to-day things that need fixing, such as a street clean or a sewer smell, the first problem is often finding out who within the maze has the responsibility (and the budget), and here it is a great help if your representative knows that part of the executive well. RA councillors seek to build up a reputation for pragmatism and persuasion so that officers will be inclined to listen and help, and we get a good response from them in general. Often we'll find that the main responsibility lies outside the Council and several other bodies such as Surrey CC, Thames Water, or EDF will have to be roped down as well.
I'll spare you, if you're still reading this, Audit and Standards, Disciplinary investigations, Disciplinary Appeals, Joint Staff and not forgetting Appointments. You'll want to know: does the whole system work? Yes it does, with reservations. It's cumbersome, complex and generates too much paper. But it's transparent, with enough checks and balances to prevent people from doing daft things with your money. It should be very clear by now that your Residents' Association needs its representatives on the Council. Otherwise we should be very hard put to know what buttons to press for any results, let alone get close enough to press them.