Local vs County

Gayle

Gayle

Town Elder
Tackler
Just to help out when people are considering what they are voting for in the forthcoming elections I took this off Hyndburn Life's website. It is useful to know who to blame for what! :D

Here in Hyndburn we are served by a system which is known as "two tier" local government. In other words, we have two sorts of council serving local people - a county council and a district, or borough council.
We have one county council, Lancashire County Council, and a borough council, Hyndburn Borough Council.

The main services provided by Hyndburn Borough Council include:
housing
refuse collection
leisure services such as swimming pools and leisure centres
environmental health
local planning

The County Council's main services include:
education and schools
social services
roads
bridges and transport
strategic planning
libraries and museums
economic development
tourism promotion
trading standards
street lighting


What it doesn't add is the sort of glossy bit that Hyndburn should be doing like securing investment in the town, generating businesses and promoting it as an individual tourism destination, plus working with the people to create a welcoming place and more vibrant place.
 
It makes me wonder if Blackburn with Darwen have got the right idea and kicked Lancashire CC out (for want of better words).
 
It rather looks as if the gloves are off and the campaigning has begun in ernest.

For those of you who don't already know, Gayle is standing in the coming council elections as a candidate for the Labour Party.....against Peter Britcliffe.

I never imagined that I would ever offer my support to a candidate for the Labour Party but, in this instance, It is easy to make an exception.

GO FOR IT GAYLE!​
 
Oh! See I come here browsing every day and didn't even know that. I'm going to stick my neck out and admit that i've no idea how the council elections work.
(Luckily it's unlikely that my politics teacher reads this forum so I can take a guess...)

The area is split in to wards, then the wards vote for a counciler (like regions in national elections)?
And then is a leader voted for seperatly? or.. *shrugs* maybe somebody could just be kind and explain! :p
 
The area is split into wards, then the wards vote for a councillor. Then the party that has the most wards has the control of the Council. Whoever is leader of that party becomes leader of the Council.

Each year only about a third of the wards are up for election, so this year there are 11 wards up for grabs. 8 are currently Labour and 3 are currently Conservative. Conservatives currently have over all control of the Council. In order for Labour to take control they have to keep all of their 8 wards plus win at least one of the Conservative ones. To keep control all the Conservatives have to do is hold their current 3 wards.
 
You make it sound almost exciting when put like that Gayle. I can't understand why some wards have more than one Councillor. If the ward is too big for one, why not make the wards smaller?
 
Ah thankyou! Now how do I find out what ward I am in :p
I like the fact that a councillor posts on a public forum. If you become leader will you still post here often? As I would assume it would be hard to do that with public scrutiny and all.. :o
 
I suppose, and I'm only guessing here, that each ward Councillor will have roughly the same number of constituents so where there are two ward Councillors in one ward they'll have double the constituents. I'm also guessing that the reason they don't just divide the area into smaller areas is because they are roughly divided by towns or logical areas within towns.

What makes sense to me would be if a ward had two Councillors it would be beneficial to the ward to have one of each party. That way most of the people would be represented by one or the other of the two main parties on the Council.
 
Gayle said:
each ward Councillor will have roughly the same number of constituents so where there are two ward Councillors in one ward they'll have double the constituents.
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You are right. As far as is possible all Councillors -within the same authority - have the same electorate.
 
Gayle said:
What makes sense to me would be if a ward had two Councillors it would be beneficial to the ward to have one of each party. That way most of the people would be represented by one or the other of the two main parties on the Council.
Click to expand...

With some Councils in the North West, all Councillors are elected at the same time and this can result in the Councillors from one ward belonging to different parties.
However with HBC approximately one third of the Councillors are elected each year so as far as the electorate is concerned they only have one vote to elect one Councillor
If you are going to have proportional voting you have got to change the voting system
 
BillGreene said:
With some Councils in the North West, all Councillors are elected at the same time and this can result in the Councillors from one ward belonging to different parties.
However with HBC approximately one third of the Councillors are elected each year so as far as the electorate is concerned they only have one vote to elect one Councillor
If you are going to have proportional voting you have got to change the voting system
Click to expand...

I'm not suggesting proportional voting at all. Although it has happened in Hyndburn before when all the seats were up for grabs at the same time and the voters got a couple of votes each. I think that was when both Cllr Britcliffe and Cllr Walmsley were elected in St Andrew's.

But let's take St Andrew's ward as an example - it currently has two Conservative Councillors, only one of which is up for election this time. Therefore, will have at least one Conservative Councillor remaining after the election - it would make sense (to me) for a Labour Councillor (as an example) to be elected in the seat that is up for grabs so that the majority of the people of the ward are represented on the council. Of course, I am slightly biased so I might not be the right person to advise on this.
 
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Cyfr said:
If you become leader will you still post here often?
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It might be some time before she becomes the Labour leader :). She is running for ward Councillor not leader. Peter is the current leader of HBC, if she wins the election it wont make Gayle the leader.

BillGreene said:
However with HBC approximately one third of the Councillors are elected each year so as far as the electorate is concerned they only have one vote to elect one Councillor
Click to expand...
Are you hoping to be one of the elected Councillors this time round Bill?

Gayle said:
I'm not suggesting proportional voting at all.
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I am quite keen on the idea of 1 party running the whole show, both at local and national level. At least it might stop local Tory Councils trying to blame the Labour Government for its own mistake and vise versa of course

Gayle said:
Of course, I am slightly biased..
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Just a tad ;)
 
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Neil said:
I am quite keen on the idea of 1 party running the whole show, both at local and national level. At least it might stop local Tory Councils trying to blame the Labour Government for its own mistake and vise versa of course
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That's an interesting idea but unless you're suggesting that the Councils are tied in to the national elections in some way I'm not sure how it could work. I agree that there is too much 'blame' between national, county and local and it's an easy thing for any one of them to say 'not my fault guv, blame the others' for things.

I'm going to say something daftish here but the one thing that I really don't like about politics is the 'politics' - by that I mean the 'blaming the other party' culture and the internal politics of voting once elected i.e. everyone voting down party lines. I believe (and this is very idealistic) that when you get voted on to the Council you should then be part of the bigger 'Team Hyndburn' and should all work together for the good of the area. I'm not the only one who thinks like that as there are some excellent Labour and Tory Councillors who currently work as a team and clearly I would be happy to work with them for the good of the area. Whilst I agree that structure is needed I think 'Team Hyndburn' should come first.

If every politician thought that way then it would negate the need for your idea as everyone would be working for the greater good and there would be less 'blame' and in fighting.

I think we're both a bit too idealistic on this though Neil as we have a system and it's unlikely to change so I think we just have to live with it.
 
You do get MP's voting against their own party at national level so I assume you do at local level.
 
I hope so for the sake of common sense.

There is such thing as a whip and there are ocassions where Councillors are instructed by the whip as to which way they should vote. The situation there is that you can either vote against (and be in a whole heap of trouble with your party), vote for or abstain. As I'm not a Councillor (yet) I don't know how this works in practice.
 
I think the votes should be secret. None of this shouting rubbish. The whole system we use to vote PM's etc. into power relies on secret ballot so you can't be pressured. Then you get to Parliament and your MP does what he is told by his Party. There is something fundamentally wrong with that.
 
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