One of the most heartbreaking things about the last four years has been seeing really good, outstanding Liberal Democrat Councillors lose their seats and Liberal Democrat councils losing office through no fault of their own.
This stuff matters because, frankly, if the quality of services a Council provides deteriorates, people suffer.
Compare and contrast the Wales Audit Office reports of 2011, when the Liberal Democrats were in power, and 2014 when Labour were two years into their term of office.
Under Liberal Democrat rule, the Council was praised.
The overall conclusion of that report was: the Council’s approach to improvement is developing well, supported by largely effective arrangements and strong leadership.
In other words the Council is generally well managed and at the time of our work was introducing significant changes in the way it provides its services. There is clear and firm leadership within the Council and finances are managed effectively. The Council’s approaches to managing risk and managing its staff are also generally positive.
The Council has well established performance reporting and review arrangements but has recognised the need to develop them further so outcomes for service users became clearer and so that it could identify whether the intended benefits of its change programme were being achieved.
However, two years on, under Labour rule, the situation is very different.
My report provides a worrying picture that the Council is not doing enough to plan for these cuts in funding or to address long-standing weaknesses in its services. I hope today’s report provides the impetus to address these issues and to build on new processes and procedures which the Council is starting to put in place.
The Liberal Democrat Group Leader on Cardiff City Council, Judith Woodman, spoke about the turmoil in the Labour Party which contributed to the report:
In the two years Labour have been running the Council, there have been two leadership challenges, four Councillors have resigned (at huge cost to the city in terms of by-elections), countless Cabinet reshuffles, five different cabinet members with responsibility for Children’s Services and claims from within the group of systemic sexism. If they can’t even run themselves, how can you expect them to run a capital city?
If the Commissioners are called in, the damage to the Council’s reputation is inconceivable.
The story is summed up in this nifty graphic from the Welsh Liberal Democrats:
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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10 Comments
Labour in turmoil in north as well as south Wales. In wrexham TEN Labour councillors quit their ruling council group and at same time resign Labour party membership !
In Swansea the Labour council leader jumped (before they could push him) just a few days ago.
They did little for a while, and reaped quite a few things the LibDem-led council had sowed, but two years in, the problems are really starting to show. And it’s so long till 2017, with those extended terms Labour decreed for itself both in the Assembly and for Welsh Councils.
One question is: how best to present this information to the electorate?
The infographic seems to fail. The yellow lettering is hard to read – red is much more impressive even when conveying bad news. The two messages aren’t presented in a way that emphasises their differences. Meanings of words like “leadership” and “financial management” and “performance” aren’t clear and aren’t necessarily directly related to all voters’ main concerns. The messages aren’t credible – they look like the usual fabrications or cherry-pickings that parties indulge in. The messages do not appear to have any authority – the Welsh Audit Office lettering is too small to read .
I guess that someone in LibDem advertising needs to start with the question: how can this stuff be related clearly, simply, and directly to what concerns voters most?
I keep hearing how good the Welsh LibDems are at running councils, running campaigns and attacking the Labour party, but at every election their share of the vote goes down. If I remember correctly they finished sixth at the last euro elections. If they are so good why does their share of the vote keep dropping? Perhaps yet again we hear the same rubbish about not getting the message across – perhaps the message has got across but very few like it.
Richard, above, is right about the artwork on the infographic, however the more important thing is how that message, which is an important one, is presented to a wider audience using a range of media. The language needs to be made a lot more basic – and linked with Gordon Brown and Miliband. I wish Jenny Willott a lot of luck n May.
Quite right. Another example is Three Rivers Council in Hertfordshire which has been Lib Dem controlled for over twenty-years under the excellent leadership of Cllr. Ann Shaw. The Party keeps on getting re-elected despite being the home of Government minister, David Gauke. Sticking to core Lib Dem principles, running an efficient administration, and maintaining close contact with the residents is the key to continued success.
@Malc
The Welsh Lib Dems put out Euro-election literature in just four of the 40 Welsh constituencies last May.
The party in Wales has collapsed.
There has also been a damning auditors report into Labour’s running of Newport Council. It criticises leadership, scrutiny and lack of evidence based decision making. There seems to be a trend here across Wales of Labour failure.
Actually Tsar Nicholas that is not true. Every home in my region of South Wales West (seven constituencies) received European literature from the Liberal Democrats. I know too that literature went out in North Wales too.
I’m not a LibDem, but it pains me to see how far Cardiff Council has fallen since Labour got elected in 2012. Labour focuses more on it’s own politics and bickering than doing what’s best for the city. When I moved into Cardiff, the city had everything going for it, just finished a bunch of redevelopment projects, city center and neighbourhoods were clean and the Council had effective leadership. What do we have now? Cathays regularly looks like a landfill because of all the confusion with the bins, and the council doing next to nothing to help keep things tidy, tiny bus lanes that have been put in places that catch regular motorists out and so on.
It’s just a shame that residents here don’t vote on local issues very often.