So, I was official a Councillor and we’d elected our Mayor and Deputy Mayor. It all seemed perfunctory, something really important, but at the same time not treated with much importance at all. How important can a decision be if you’re expected to make it instantly, without really understanding what’s going on?
It felt like the start of a theme that would keep repeating. The message was: the returning councillors know what they’re doing, so just leave it up to them. This local council stuff is very complicated and it will take you a long time to get used to it. A recently co-opted councillor even admitted often that they didn’t really understand what was happening, and so left it up to the others “who knew what they were doing.”
To me, that doesn’t sound like support or induction. It feels like a way of shutting down a new councillor. Instead of helping us get to grips with things, it’s easier to say, “you couldn’t possibly understand this”, and encourage us to sit quietly and not get involved. That’s never really been my forte.
We only had 5 new councillors out of 14. But, I kept wondering, how would it work if there were 10, 12, or even all 14 of us who were new? Would we still be expected to blindly vote? This is the system up and down the country, in bigger councils it’s party politics. The leader of the largest party becomes the leader. But in this context, it just feels nonsensical.
Anyway, I digress, on to the rest of the agenda.
Next up Councillor…
Next up: reviewing the terms of reference for committees and the delegation arrangements to committees and employees. I’d come prepared, I consider myself a thorough person, so I had read and annotated all the documents (pages 3–12 of the pack).
But here’s the thing: I’ve sat in plenty of business meetings for work, and I’ve never been asked to just sign off nine pieces of paper without any discussion or context. Yet in this setting, that was clearly what was expected. It made me wonder, had some councillors never really understood the documents either? But after years of nodding them through, was it simply too late to start asking questions?
This year there were noticeable changes. Some committee names had shifted, and several functions had been added, altered or removed. I asked why, and was told it was down to a restructure. But the message was clear: don’t worry about it, just sign it off and move on.
More voting…
And then it was time to elect the chairs and vice-chairs for the five committees: Asset Management, Community, Planning, Finance and Staffing.
I’d studied the agenda carefully, so I knew what the committees were responsible for. But I didn’t know the people in the room, who had what skills, experience, or knowledge. And none of them knew me, or any of the other new councillors, either.
And yet, by the end of the process, Jack and I had both ended up as Vice-Chairs, him of Community, me of Finance. Which means that if the Chair is unavailable, I’ll be leading those meetings.
The atmosphere in the room suggested that for many, this meeting was just one to get through. Vote, agree, move on. For me though, this felt like the important stuff, setting the framework for how the council, the councillors, and the meetings actually work.
Somehow, despite all the nodding along and lack of debate, the meeting still felt like wading through treacle, and I wasn’t even at the end of the agenda yet.
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