Author: jlowther2015

Does Parliament discuss Local Government issues?

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Steve Watson

So far in 2024 (as at 19th March), there have been 26 debates in Parliament to discuss Local Government issues. By way of comparison, there have been 12 debates on illegal immigration, and 16 on energy prices.

So, it seems reasonable to conclude that Parliament does discuss Local Government issues, but what issues have been discussed and who’s been doing the talking?

There are various sources of data on this topic, including Hansard and Parliament TV.  For this blog, I used the ScrutinyCounts app, which analyses MP’s contributions in Parliament (as recorded by Commons Hansard) and presents the data in an easy-to-use format on a mobile app so users can see who is saying what about which topics quickly and easily on their smartphone. 

The charts below, taken from the Scrutiny Counts mobile app, show the Local Government debates that have taken place so far this year and the date they took place.

As can be seen from the screenshot charts, there’s a breadth of discussion on Local Government matters ranging from Financial Distress and Funding, Combined Authorities, Mayors, through to Four-day week working. Within the app, there is click-thru functionality which lets you see the full debate content, the MP’s who have participated, and the contributions they have made. There’s also “share” functionality to enable useful and interesting content to be quickly and easily shared with friends and colleagues.

Looking across the past twelve months, there have been over 159,000 words spoken in Local Government debates (measured by words spoken as recorded in Commons Hansard).

Across the debates, Conservative MPs contributed into the debates 66.5%, Labour 22.4% and other parties 11.2% (this compares with the party split by number of sitting MPs of 53%, 30% and 17% respectively).

As can be seen in the “monthly breakdown” area of the chart below, after a relatively quiet few months over summer of 2023, the level of debate activity significantly increased during Autumn 23 and early 2024 with February 2024 being a particularly busy month.

Perhaps not unsurprisingly the top contributing MPs in Local Government debates were government and shadow government ministers such as Simon Hoare (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) and Jim McMahon (Shadow Minister (Levelling Up, Housing, Communities and Local Government) with contributions being made in their respective roles.

But aside from Frontbench MP’s, who have been the top contributing Backbench MPs in Local Government related debates during the last 12 months? (measured by words spoken as recorded by Commons Hansard).

The charts below show the top contributing Frontbench MPs, and the top contributing Backbench Conservative and Labour MP’s;

There are often detailed and constructive contributions into the debates from all the parties. The quotes shown below are taken from speeches given by the two top contributors in the above charts. They both give an insight into the work that MPs do in representing their communities and constituents in parliamentary debates.

So, in summary, yes Local Government issues are discussed in Parliament. The news in the mainstream media may focus on the weekly exchanges in PMQ’s, the political gossip of the day, or the topical late night divisions and votes, but in so doing many don’t see the work MP’s of all parties do in important debates across a range of subjects such as Local Government, Housing, Social Care, etc.

The contributions in debates are often constructive and well thought through, providing valuable insight for politicians, councillors, and council officers and all those with an interest in Local Government. The debates form an important function in bringing local issues to the national stage and play an important role in our democratic system.

The charts and images in the article are taken from the ScrutinyCounts mobile app which is available via subscription on Apple AppStore and Google Playstore. The app uses data as reported in Commons Hansard and presents it in an easy to digest format which enables users to quickly and easily read what MPs are discussing in Parliament.

Steve Watson is a Director of Hinc Ltd, the provider of the ScrutinyCounts mobile app. Steve started his career as an electronics engineer but quickly came to realise he was more suited to working with computers rather than designing them! After being a joint owner of a Local Authority data insight company which was successfully grew and subsequently sold, Steve started a new venture to develop a mobile app called ScrutinyCounts which enables users to quickly and easily see what is being said, and by who, in Parliament.   More information about ScrutinyCounts can be found here or at Twitter/X @ScrutinyCounts 

The UK’s Flipping Gender Gap

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Chris Game

As I’ve aged, I’ve become ever keener to find mnemonic tricks that might help my increasingly faulty memory to recall potentially useful stuff – like, this week, key dates in the history of women’s suffrage. At some point somewhere during the extended celebrations of International Women’s Day (IWD) beyond March 8th, for example, there’s almost bound to be some reference to women gaining (or, in Afghanistan, losing/regaining?) the right to vote.

I used to lecture about this historic stuff and my women’s suffrage mnemonic was/is 1869, the year at least a few women – unmarried ratepayers in GB & Ireland – gained the right to vote in local elections.  Which, while obviously not globally record-breaking, sounds tolerably progressive – until you deploy the mnemonic, reverse the central digits, and recall that women in the Dutch province of Friesland had been at it for nearly two centuries – or since 1689, to be precise.

This IWD contribution, unsurprisingly, is not about women gaining the vote, but how, in post-war Britain they’ve collectively been exercising it in successive General Elections. And it’s aided by the following striking graph, whose ‘gender gap’ approach was developed by Inglehart and Norris back in 2000. They and their successors duly updated it in successive elections, drawing comparisons/contrasts with other countries, but only in the past few years has it really come into its own, and for the obvious reason: that it’s so visually, and politically, striking – as the version prepared for me by the Birmingham Post’s editorial team demonstrates.

All but one of the first 19 bars/columns are blue, showing women as more likely to have voted Conservative by varying percentages up to a mighty 17% in the early 1950s. The sole exception was 2010, the first of the recent run of ‘hung Parliament’ elections, when men and women were equally likely to have voted Conservative, so no column at all.

It had become a truism: that, certainly in Britain, women were at least marginally more Conservative or right-wing than men in their voting behaviour. Until suddenly, in both the 2017 and 2019 General Elections, they weren’t – in each case being a sizeable 12% LESS likely to have voted Conservative than men.

Some unknowable proportion of what was swiftly tagged our Flipping Gender Gap was undoubtedly attributable to women’s consistently greater enthusiasm for remaining in the EU, but those striking 2019 gender gap figures are still worth detailing. Conservative: 47% of men, 42% of women; Labour: 29% of men, 37% of women – representing a massive 18% Conservative lead over Labour amongst men, and just a 5% lead amongst women.

Which begs the obvious question of whether we’ll see something comparable this time, and, if so, to what degree? Or was it, say, Brexit in those two elections that produced a kind of two-off aberration? Either way, these ‘gender gap’ statistics will be among the most anticipated and intensively studied, as commentators prepare their voting forecasts.

Indeed, they already have been, the commonest immediate reaction from those who study these things, particularly following the 2019 election, being that “at last” UK women voters were catching up.

For the stats have shown that for years now many/most other established democracies – the US outstandingly, but also the Scandinavians, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Canada, even Italy – had seen the development of a modern-day gender gap, with women more likely to vote for left-leaning parties than men, while our gender gap showed the reverse.

No longer, then, did the UK seem to be bucking the global trend. As in these other democracies, as more women entered higher education and paid work, some at least became more socially and economically liberal and supportive of gender equality, pushing them to the left of men in their party choices.

Even just typing that ‘UK women voters’ label, though, I’m conscious of risking over-simplification. And indeed, it obscures significant and unsurprising differences across age cohorts. Younger women are considerably more likely to support Labour and less likely to support the Conservatives than younger men, but this modern gender gap lessens and eventually disappears among older voters.

So how will all this affect what happens in this year’s General Election? The estimable UK Women’s Budget Group commissioned a YouGov poll last autumn which reflected and updated some of the above findings – starting with almost a law of UK electoral politics: women take their time to decide.

Asked for their voting intentions, 18% of respondents hadn’t, with no election in the immediate offing, made up their minds: 11% of men and a full 25% of women. Those that had decided split very similarly between the major parties: Men – 20% Conservative, 31% Labour, 7% Lib Dem; Women – 17%, 31%, 8%.

The big difference came with the then Don’t Knows: just 11% of the men, but one in every four women. So, if they hadn’t then decided, perhaps they won’t vote?  By no means: 13% of males were ‘would not voters’, and just 3% of females.

Probably not surprisingly, their policy priorities differ somewhat too. NHS and healthcare is highest ranked by all, but that was 48% of men and 64% of women. The economy was “most important” for 44% of men, but only 28% of women, and the reverse was the case for ‘Environment and climate change’ and ‘Education and schools’ – the latter ranked “most important” by 18% of women but just 9% of men.

And, to quote the ever-flexible Forrest Gump: that’s all I have to say about that – for the time being.

Chris Game is an INLOGOV Associate, and Visiting Professor at Kwansei Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan.  He is joint-author (with Professor David Wilson) of the successive editions of Local Government in the United Kingdom, and a regular columnist for The Birmingham Post.

Inflation and Local Authority Budgets

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Andrew Coulson

Our two main political parties are locked in a strange debate about the next budget, on 6 March. The elephant in the room is the underfunding of local government.

In the nearly 14 years of Conservative government, the core spending power of local authorities has been cut by 27% in real terms.[1] The County Councils Network has “warned that its members are under extreme pressure, and that the authorities they represent are set to overspend by almost £650m this year due to spiralling costs, particularly in children’s social care and home to school transport, which was contributing to a £4b funding deficit for those authorities over the next three years”. In addition an increase in the National Living Wage is expected to costs these councils £230m next year.[2] This has happened at a time when the ability of councils to raise their council taxes has been held down, for 2024-5 to below 5% for all but a tiny number of councils.[3]  One of its consequences has been the inability of the employers in local government and the NHS to negotiate pay settlements which reflect the rate of inflation, or anything near it.

My reading of the present position is that Gove on the one hand and Rachel Reeves on the other are playing chicken. Each are waiting for the other to move first. They both know that after the general election a new government will have to settle the long-standing pay disputes in the public sector, and that it is not possible, year after year, for the pay of staff employed by local government and the NHS to rise by less the rate of inflation. The consequences are visable: depressed morale, a haemorrhage of experienced staff, and dependence on immigration to employ new staff. Rachel hopes that the Conservatives will be forced to confront this before the election. Gove wants the Labour Party to commit to doing it, because as of now any settlement is unfunded.

My view is that the understanding of inflation both by the two main political parties and the Bank of England is naive, especially as it relates to government policy. The starting point should be that inflation affects the distribution of income. It is an intrinsically political process. Most large companies and the richest people have means through which they can compensate for any inflation. Those who do not have the power or muscle to do so pay the price. Thomas Piketty[4] showed that inflation was the main means by which the middle classes paid for much of the costs of two world wars.[5]  In those inflations, and in the last significant inflation in the UK, which followed the OPEC hikes in oil prices in the 1970s, the trade unions were strong enough to ensure that wages rose at around the rate of inflation. This is no longer the case.

Yet the recent inflation has given the Government unprecedented increases in tax, which means that, if they so choose, they can afford wage increases. Most of this extra income arises from not raising the ceilings on higher rates of tax. Jeremy Hunt would like to use it to lower rates of income tax. The IMF (no less!) has told him that it is not appropriate to do so at this time.[6] The main reason, not always clearly stated, is that there are many unfunded challenges, but of these the public sector pay disputes (and perhaps the need for additional spending on defence, where difficulties in retention and recruitment are also partly a matter of pay settlements not keeping up with inflation) are top of the list. 

Economists in the UK, the USA and other developed countries have had little to say in recent years about inflation. As if it is no longer a problem, which it probably isn’t if inflation stays at around 2%. But the present inflations, driven by wars, the climate crisis and the lockdowns, are another matter. Economic theory is little help. All the traditional theories have been shown to be false. It is not true that inflation and unemployment are opposites: we can have both together, so-called stagflation. Or that it can be controlled by limiting the supply of money, which is not possible when most of it is created by banks which lend far more than they hold in deposits. Or that it is either created by unexpected demands or by unexpected costs.

The British Government urgently needs to resolve the disputes about pay in the public sector, and to do so recognising that most local government employees are substantially worse off than they were before. The Labour spokesperson Angela Rayner has made the practical proposal of negotiating a three year settlement.[7]  It cannot come soon enough.

Andrew Coulson is a nationally-recognised expert on scrutiny in local government and is particularly interested in governance by committee.

[1] Local Government Association, https://www.local.gov.uk/about/campaigns/save-local-services/save-local-services-council-pressures-explained 2024

[2] https://www.countycouncilsnetwork.org.uk/councils-in-significantly-worse-financial-position-after-the-autumn-statement-with-seven-in-ten-now-unsure-if-they-can-balance-their-budget-next-year/

[3] A prescient academic law professor, writing as long ago as 1984, wrote “It seems to me that the provisions for rate-capping … are little removed from a proposal to replace elected councils by administrative units. For a very long time, local inhabitants have enjoyed the right to elect local representatives with the power to tax, and so to determine, within modest political limits, what level of services shall be provided in the locality. … I have no difficulty in saying of an Act to put a limit on the rates leviable by a local authority that it is politically unconstitutional”. John Griffiths, in the Preface to Half a Century of Municipal Decline 1935-1985, George Allen and Unwin, 1985, p.xii

[4] Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Harvard University Press, 2014

[5] The point was also made by one of his critics, Joseph T Salano, “War and the Money Machine: Concealing the costs of War beneath the Veil of Inflation” in John V Denson (ed.) The Costs of War, Routledge, 2nd edn. 1999 

[6] David Milliken and William Schomberg,  https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/imf-cuts-uk-growth-outlook-2025-after-stronger-past-performance-2024-01-30/

[7] “Rayner floats three year pay deal”. Municipal Journal, 14 Feb. 2024

How does UK Local Government look from overseas?

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Alice Watson

My sister lives in the Netherlands. I saw her at the weekend. She’s planning her return to the UK, and so our conversation inevitably turned to “the state of the UK”. To my surprise, the first thing she raised was the parlous state of Local Government. It’s not a topic that usually cuts through to the general public. Has it got that bad?

The slant that I take on this topic (and all others to be fair) is different from most people’s. I’m Alice Watson, part of the team that created the ScrutinyCounts app, which provides easy access to parliamentary debates. So every day I use the app to check what’s been said in the House, and I dip into any debates that look of particular interest.

And as luck would have it, recently (1st Feb 2024) there was a debate about Local Authorities in Financial Distress. And a few days before that there was one about Somerset Council’s difficulties, and the week before that there was one about Transparency in Local Government, and the week before that there was one about the potential merits of the Four Day Working Week….and the list goes on. There isn’t a shortage of topical content.

People groan when I say I read Parliamentary Debates. They assume they are like PMQ’s (a pet hate of mine), which they aren’t.

Here’s a quote from the recent debate about Local Authorities in Financial Distress. It’s a reply from a Labour MP (Clive Betts) to a Conservative MP (Bob Blackman):

It’s a cheering thought. Cross party select committees working collaboratively to explore problems and find solutions.

And what else did I learn from the debate? That the woes of some councils are self-inflicted, but not all. That the various mixed pots of funding available to councils makes for a patchy funding pattern geographically. That the three main spending challenges are Social Care, Special Educational Needs, and Homelessness.

There are two big benefits to reading a parliamentary debate on this (and any other) topic. Firstly, you get to read all sides of the political argument, which is good for the soul regardless of where you sit politically. And secondly, you get a sense of how different regions are affected. By way of example, Bradford’s problems stem from the high cost of Children’s Services in the Borough. The Trustees running Children’s Services have demanded a sum equivalent to about 50% of the council’s budget. Very different from the much-reported Equal Pay claims at Birmingham.

There are hundreds of other topics that are equally interesting and relevant to people who spin in the world of Local Government. On 11th January 2024 there was a debate about SEND Provision and Funding. As is often the case, MP’s volunteered personal stories which adds conviction and context to their contributions. Read this quote from David Davis (Conservative) about his granddaughter, Chloe:

I won’t try and precis this, or any other debates here. Because with every precis, comes editorial judgement, and the whole point of ScrutinyCounts is that we don’t edit, summarise, filter or distort. We have created summary charts that enable you to navigate quickly to items that are of interest. Then you click through to the original debate and text. Our screen designs are optimised for speed reading so you can jump to contributions that interest you, and scroll up and down fast.

So what did I say to my sister about the parlous state of Local Government? I told her not to believe everything she reads in the news, but to look on ScrutinyCounts, read about it for herself, and make her own judgement!

Alice Watson is a Director of Hinc Ltd, the provider of the ScrutinyCounts mobile app. Having trained as an Engineer (Bath Uni), she established Porge (a data insight company), which she successfully grew and subsequently sold. ScrutinyCounts is her latest chapter. It sprung from her belief that people need an easy way of following politics, undistorted by echo chambers or soundbites. More information about ScrutinyCounts can be found here – https://www.scrutinycounts.co.uk/ or follow us on Twitter/X @ScrutinyCounts 

Could do better – supporting young carers at school

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Elaine Campbell

Young carers provide unpaid, and often unacknowledged care, usually for parents or other family members. While caring may be viewed as a health and social care issue, most young carers who are under 18 will spend much of their time in full-time education. So it is critical that education professionals are ready and able to support young carers to achieve at school.

This study explored how a multi-agency approach could improve the educational experiences of young carers in Northern Ireland through a survey of teachers and interviews with professionals in education and health and social care.  Young carers are often unseen by medical and educational professionals, who may be unaware they are providing care or unaware of what support may be needed.

Key findings

  • Young carers and their experiences are routinely overlooked and unseen in educational and health care settings. 
  • The lack of legislative recognition for young carers has created a policy void, despite input which has explicitly identified the need to support and care for this group of young people. 
  • Existing guidance which outlines ways to support young carers in school has not been routinely implemented in schools or shared with school staff
  • A combination of a strengths-based model, combined with existing protective factors for young people has the potential to provide appropriate care and support, promote positive self-worth and improve educational outcomes for young carers.
  • A systematic failure of planning contributes to patchy and inconsistent partnership approaches which are overly reliant on individual commitment to change, rather than systems change

Background 

While my study focused on Northern Ireland, many of the issues faced by young carers are universal in nature. The literature review highlights the unseen nature of young carers as a key barrier identified by researchers and young peoples’ experience across cross-national researchers

Teachers’ understanding of impact and role of young carers is variable, and at times, dismissive. The age at which young carers may begin their caring role is often at primary school, which is unexpected by teaching and medical professionals. The study highlighted a willingness to help but also a reliance on parents or young carers disclosing their status. 

Reaching out to young carers is essential

Teachers acknowledged the difficulties of identifying young carers; other research has established that young carers may be reluctant to self-identify or to ask for support if they feel they have not been listened to. Teachers felt that parents only disclosed when they felt forced, often during a crisis. 

Transition points provide an excellent opportunity to encourage disclosure. Updating contact information each year, conversations about the transfer to post-secondary school and when young people enrol in a new school are ideal opportunities to ask if a child is undertaking caring responsibilities. This can help start the conversation about how to support them in school. Schools can include information on their websites, on posters, and use Assemblies to recognise the contribution young carers make.

The policy deficit contributes to suffering 

Resources and initiatives have been identified, but never implemented, which is both disappointing, but also provides an opportunity for change. Guidance without legislative protection is unlikely to be prioritised. Young carers are less likely to take up further education and more likely to live in poverty, and more likely to experience poor mental health.  

The sustained lack of policy attention is an issue which requires urgent redress. Existing guidance includes specific, practical examples of ways to support young carers emotionally and practically to achieve at school, and many of the suggestions require time and planning, not financial costs. A renewed effort to share and monitor this guidance, using a policy lever, could make a powerful impact on young carers. 

Shifting the focus from harm reduction to promoting wellbeing 

Professionals described a system which considers young carers primarily in terms of harm reduction. Despite the challenges, many young people are proud of their caring role and display outstanding qualities and strengths.

There is insufficient focus on working collaboratively to provide proactive support to young carers to achieve in school, take up opportunities to socialise, and enjoy breaks from caring, or to share information about this support to young carers.

Education Authority guidance, with input from young carers, highlights that what they often want most is practical support to help them get through the school day and for their teachers to show understanding of their reality.

Conclusion 

This study highlighted that there are pockets of good practice and existing multi-agency working which have contributed to collaboration, but these are exceptional rather than routine. 

The study concludes that there is a need for greater legislative recognition, including a statutory responsibility on key agencies in health and social care and education to provide support for young carers.

Agencies should be more proactive in seeking out young carers, by including information on school enrolment and admissions forms, asking during clinical admissions and review medical appointments, and signposting to young carers’ projects and other partners.

Young carers are being failed; they deserve better, and the answers are already there. What’s needed now is the impetus to follow through and deliver.

Elaine Campbell was awarded an MPA in 2023. Previously an Assistant Director at children’s charity Barnardo’s, Elaine is currently Head of Service Enablement and Improvement at Alzheimer’s Society. She is also a Chair of Board of Governors at a primary school. She can be contacted at [email protected]

Empowering Local Voices: Unveiling the Role of Councillors in European Governance

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Dr Thom Oliver

In the intricate tapestry of European local governance, local councillors stand as pivotal figures, linking citizens to decision-making processes that shape their daily lives. Their interactions within communities, councils, and broader public administration are the bedrock of modern democracy. Last week, alongside colleagues from the University of Bristol, Cardiff University, and Ghent University, we embarked on an ambitious endeavour: an email survey reaching over 19,100 councillors across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

The survey is part of a broader European effort, with a single shared survey being rolled out with spans twenty-eight European countries driven by a broad collaboration of academics emerges from extensive international research network dedicated to conducting surveys with local political actors to understand local and national political dynamics. Over two decades their comparative work has shed light on the councillor, council leader and mayor roles of local government, administrative intricacies, civic cultures, and political practices across Europe, enriching both academic and practical understanding.

Our latest research now refocuses on local councillors, probing fundamental questions about democracy, their perceptions of their roles, views on local government, challenges within the institutional environment, and policy priorities. The survey also aims to understand councillors’ experiences with aggression and abuse and the influence of such encounters on their council activities and public engagement.

But this survey is more than just academic curiosity; it’s about amplifying the voices of local representatives. Councillors are the conduits between citizens and power, entrusted with articulating community aspirations and championing collective interests. They face mounting external pressures—from austerity to centralisation—and grapple with balancing economic growth, development, and environmental concerns, alongside the existential threat of rising social care costs as more and more councils face financial distress.

Unlike previous paper-based iterations, this survey employs electronic questionnaires sent to individual councillors across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, with the survey lasting around 15 minutes, we are keen that councillors both start and finish the survey, so have enabled them to complete it over multiple sittings if required via simply clicking on the email invitation.

As the survey unfolds across 28 countries, we urge councillors to join the dialogue and lend their voices to the study. Personalised emails have been sent directly to councillors’ inboxes, and follow-ups will continue over the coming month. Any councillors unable to access the survey can reach out to the project team using the contact details provided below.

We are calling on all councillors to check their inbox for our survey! Your voices are crucial to use better understanding the challenges and priorities in your role. This is the first time we have delivered the survey across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland so we are really keen to ensure that all voices are represented across political parties, different tiers of local government, and geographies. Let’s ensure all your voices are heard loud and clear.

Dr Thom Oliver is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Thom completed his PhD at INLOGOV in 2011. Along with Dr David Sweeting (Bristol), Prof Colin Copus (Gent), and Dr Bettina Petersohn (Cardiff), he is leading the Return of the Councillors study in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Thom leads the Qualitative Election Study of Britain, and is a co-investigator on the Bristol Civic Leadership Project.