The UK Experience by Malcolm Morley*
By the time that you read this article the District Council elections will have taken place. In England elections in District Councils are either in thirds (one third of the Council has to face election every year) or every four years. Every fourth year the elections for the County Council are held in two tier Local Government areas. Confused? Think about the public!
This situation means that in some areas there is a District Council election every year for three years and in others a District Council election just once every four years. This frequency of elections can have a significant impact on Councils. Where elections are held every year for three years the political time horizon is often limited to a few months.
The sequence can be: after elections in May form an Administration, develop and try to implement a policy agenda until Christmas/early New Year, set the budget in February and then prepare for the next set of elections in May.
Where Councils are politically ‘hung’ or there is the possibility of a change of Administration, the focus on the next election is often evident immediately after Christmas. This means that if you rule out May (due to the election itself and forming an Administration) and rule out August (holiday) and rule out a half of December (Christmas) a new Administration seems to have about six to seven months before it starts getting back into election mode.
Where elections are held every four years the political time horizon is much longer. As all of us with experience of Local Government know, political time horizons are crucial to budget setting and to developing and implementing policy.
Even where an Administration is confident of being returned at the next election, there is always caution when formulating budgets and developing and implementing policy with an election looming.
In the month before an election there is a ‘perdah’ period where Councillors cannot be seen to pursue political ends in the conduct of Council business. Indeed, few formal meetings of Council are held in the run up to the election. There are also all kinds of restrictions on literature, meetings, being quoted in the press and so forth.
All of the above means that with annual Council elections a significant part of the municipal year can in some way be focused on the election. There is also significant disruption to Councils.
Generally the Council Chief Executive is the Returning Officer who is responsible for the conduct of elections. Council staff provide the administrative support for the organisation of the election, for manning polling stations on the day of the election, for counting votes and for supervising the count. They also issue postal votes, open returned postal votes and count them. This causes disruption to normal service provision.
As talk of Local Government reorganisation hots up it has to be hoped that the frequency of elections for Councils is part of the consideration. Councils now regularly consult the communities that they serve on priorities, satisfaction with services, budgets and the like. More and more work is being done on community engagement and empowerment. We hear that the public are getting consultation fatigue. With election turnout figures consistently low is there a danger that they are also getting election fatigue?
*Malcolm Morley is Chief Executive of Harlow District Council and can be contacted via the Editor, email info@lgfocus.com.au The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of his employer.
