OF THE THREE TIERS of local government that handle our affairs, it is that which operates at district council level which has the most immediate effect because it is this authority that sends out the council tax bills and is responsible for planning decisions and most of those other services affecting our daily lives such as housing, environmental health, leisure, culture, sports and recreation, refuse and recycling. In the case of Bourne, this is the work of South Kesteven District Council.

Ever since this council came into being in 1974, it operated a committee system under which every councillor had the opportunity to have his say on all matters, a particularly important element on controversial issues affecting the wards they represent. But on 25th October 2001, all of this changed with the introduction of a new Cabinet and Leader style of management and although this was designed to deliver quicker decisions with all major meetings open to the public, in essence it has not been an improvement on the previous democratic process, despite a commitment by all councillors to make the system work for the benefit of residents.

The key to the new system is the Forward Plan, a list of priorities published once a month, highlighting the key projects throughout the area and with the aim of providing a more open and faster reaction local government. The Cabinet consists of the Leader and five other councillors responsible for specific areas of activity, their portfolios including the environment, rural affairs, economic development, recreation and social matters. All are empowered to make decisions which carry the weight of the Cabinet and this has proved to be the stumbling block to a successful implementation of the new system. The theory was attractive and apparently indisputable but in practice, it has failed to deliver.

The full council meets every six weeks to agree policy frameworks and debate issues that will not interfere with key decisions. Separate Policy Development Committees identify the direction for the council and also play a crucial part. The new system was intended to offer a more open and democratic method of managing local affairs than the previous committee structure where most decisions had to wait for full council approval. In practice, individual Cabinet members are able to make decisions within the existing policy framework although it is rare for any issue not to have been fully discussed within Cabinet beforehand. The question now is whether this is sufficient consultation and whether individual councillors have an input and the answer is a resounding no.

After our first full year of operating the new system, Cabinet members are openly expressing their doubts as to its efficacy. One particular example in Bourne has received a tremendous amount of publicity and that is the closure of the public toilets in South Street last October, a decision taken by Councillor Peter Martin-Mayhew, the Cabinet member responsible for this area of community services, on the grounds that they were being badly vandalised and had become a meeting place for paedophiles. He is the member for Caythorpe and Fulbeck, over in the Grantham area, and none of the six councillors representing Bourne were given the chance to have their say on the issue before the lavatories were closed down. In fact, the first some knew of what was happening was when they read it in the local newspapers. 

This is a perfect example of the shortcomings of the new system and there are many others, not just here in Bourne, but in other towns and villages covered by SKDC. Under the old system, this would first have been discussed by the appropriate committee and recommendations made to the full council when all councillors would have had the opportunity to give their opinions before a vote was taken. Under the new system, the closure of the loos was a fait accompli on the direction of one councillor.

As the new system was imposed on us by central government, it is therefore the right of those who have to carry out their wishes to question its capability and as so many have found it wanting, then we should ask for it to be reviewed in an attempt to make it more democratic. Experience over the previous 12 months has proved that the system curtails debate, an essential ingredient of the democratic process, and as a result there is less input from residents and ward councillors who have first hand knowledge of the subjects in hand. The closure of the toilets in Bourne has become the classic example of the system not working because it is now extremely difficult, or well nigh impossible, to have them re-opened at their present location.

Councillors such as myself who have the interests of those who elected us at heart, feel totally isolated from the decision-making process and must sit in the wings and field complaints from those we represent knowing that we are helpless to change what has been done in their name. Some Cabinet members too have expressed doubts about the system because they find themselves being blamed as the sole perpetrators of unpopular decisions.

There is also a growing body of complaint from other local councillors around the country against the Cabinet system introduced under the Local Government Act of 2000, claiming that it was not only poorly written but also designed to isolate the non-executive councillors such as myself from the democratic process to such an extent that many are not bothering to seek re-election because they feel that their services are no longer required. 

This is a dilemma for those councillors who wish to serve but I have decided to remain, provided I am re-elected. I can do nothing to change things by bowing out but by remaining as a councillor, there is a chance that I might influence opinion in the future. It was this growing disquiet among local councillors that prompted me to place a motion before the council on November 1st last year saying:

That this council request the minister concerned with local government to examine the existing Cabinet structure with a view to making it more democratic.

I tabled this motion because of the increasing frustration of not being involved in council business or being allowed to voice an opinion, when I had been elected by my constituents to do just that on their behalf. When the council discussed my motion, I asked: "Is it right that a Cabinet of half a dozen councillors should be responsible entirely for all decisions made by the authority? Does it not have the air of a junta or dictatorship? This system is most surely less democratic than the one it replaced."

My motion was seconded by an Independent member, Councillor George Waterhouse, and was carried by 23 votes with 15 against. There were eight abstentions. There has been no reply from Whitehall to date but I can say emphatically that the issue has by no means been forgotten and will not be allowed to languish in limbo.

WRITTEN MARCH 2003