21st Century Councillor Workshop
presentation
16 Jul
This workshop looked at the different roles of being a councillor, particularly in what councillors should or could be doing in response to massive challenges to spending and budget discussions.
The workshop split into four groups. They were given a list of different roles councillors can undertake - everything from helping people to scrutinising the council. We asked them to come up with three that best describe what a councillor should do.
Watch the presentation here:
People Politics
The three main themes the groups came up with were:
1. 'Community leadership' and under it as an umbrella term, listening to, being available to and championing, residents.
2. Next the discussion focussed on members' relationship with officers - and how officers can be inspired by members, but also the other way around, and how councillors role is to often navigate through those relationships. Effective scrutiny is also obviously a part of this, as councillors can hold the council to account through external and internal means, but of course the members themselves need to ensure that it is a positive and constructive (and meaningful to residents) process.
3. Thirdly, different groups mentioned 'introducing exciting policies', 'making a difference' and 'prioritising' which of course can sometimes be lost in the maelstrom of events, corporate pressures and ability to influence effectively. Keeping things political, without distracted by party knockabout is perhaps one of the hardest jobs - but often with some of the most satisfying consequences.
3 most common pitfalls...?
1. Getting bogged down in too much detail
2. Lose perspective
3. Lack of Influence / suffer from reputation of 'politics' generally
According to this group, the three most common pitfalls were largely to do with councillors becoming too involved with the detail, process and internal matters of the council. Indeed this reflection complements very well their views on what councillors should be doing - being a conduit between residents and council departments. If councillors are spending too much time in meetings getting obsessed with every agenda item, are they doing their job effectively? Another point of course is how can the council itself respond to this, by reviewing how much paperwork, meetings and internal processes they expect their councillors to do, and conversely how much do they support councillors' roles in their ward and community.
Councillor's role in cutting costs
The final part of the workshop discussion, quickly brainstormed some of the things councillors can or should be doing to help navigate public services through the new realities of budget reductions.
The recurring theme was how councillors should be able to inform, discuss and involve residents in some of the hard decisions that the council will be facing in the upcoming years. Communicating and explaining things like moving to fortnightly collections to reduce costs, but also involving citizens directly in budgetary decisions. 'Achieving a sense of collective, community responsibility' for what needs to be done was offered by one participant, while another suggested that it was up to councillors to find ways of taking advantage of the latent resources and capacity that exist within communities already.
The workshop split into four groups. They were given a list of different roles councillors can undertake - everything from helping people to scrutinising the council. We asked them to come up with three that best describe what a councillor should do.
Watch the presentation here:
People Politics
The three main themes the groups came up with were:
1. 'Community leadership' and under it as an umbrella term, listening to, being available to and championing, residents.
2. Next the discussion focussed on members' relationship with officers - and how officers can be inspired by members, but also the other way around, and how councillors role is to often navigate through those relationships. Effective scrutiny is also obviously a part of this, as councillors can hold the council to account through external and internal means, but of course the members themselves need to ensure that it is a positive and constructive (and meaningful to residents) process.
3. Thirdly, different groups mentioned 'introducing exciting policies', 'making a difference' and 'prioritising' which of course can sometimes be lost in the maelstrom of events, corporate pressures and ability to influence effectively. Keeping things political, without distracted by party knockabout is perhaps one of the hardest jobs - but often with some of the most satisfying consequences.
3 most common pitfalls...?
1. Getting bogged down in too much detail
2. Lose perspective
3. Lack of Influence / suffer from reputation of 'politics' generally
According to this group, the three most common pitfalls were largely to do with councillors becoming too involved with the detail, process and internal matters of the council. Indeed this reflection complements very well their views on what councillors should be doing - being a conduit between residents and council departments. If councillors are spending too much time in meetings getting obsessed with every agenda item, are they doing their job effectively? Another point of course is how can the council itself respond to this, by reviewing how much paperwork, meetings and internal processes they expect their councillors to do, and conversely how much do they support councillors' roles in their ward and community.
Councillor's role in cutting costs
The final part of the workshop discussion, quickly brainstormed some of the things councillors can or should be doing to help navigate public services through the new realities of budget reductions.
The recurring theme was how councillors should be able to inform, discuss and involve residents in some of the hard decisions that the council will be facing in the upcoming years. Communicating and explaining things like moving to fortnightly collections to reduce costs, but also involving citizens directly in budgetary decisions. 'Achieving a sense of collective, community responsibility' for what needs to be done was offered by one participant, while another suggested that it was up to councillors to find ways of taking advantage of the latent resources and capacity that exist within communities already.