Liberator 314 included a piece critical of English Candidates Committee and of the selection process generally. Sadly, but inevitably, the Collective are not alone in their criticism so, perhaps, we need to have an open debate on our processes, what they seek to achieve, how they work and what key failings need to be addressed in order to move things forward.
I’ve been involved in the selection processes of the party as a Returning Officer since 1989 and as a candidate assessor since 1995. In that time I’ve seen huge changes in the Selection Rules and the candidate approval processes, very few of which have simplified the processes to be followed. With that complexity comes frustration, and not just for those wanting to be candidates or wishing to adopt one.
Unexpectedly perhaps, I share some of those frustrations, as the system by which we select PPCs places a heavy burden on our Local Parties, especially the smaller, weaker ones. Our selection rules impose costs, both financial and human, and where the number of likely applicants is small, that cost is a disproportionate one. So how did we get into this mess?
Principles can be an expensive luxury sometimes. As part of the merger agreement in 1988, it was accepted that we would steer a compromise course between all member postal ballots (the old SDP way of choosing parliamentary candidates) and hustings-only participation (the traditional Liberal approach). Accordingly and, I believe, sensibly, we chose to allow members to apply for postal ballots if they are unable to attend the hustings and we therefore need to allow sufficient time to notify members of the hustings meeting, and to allow for request, issue and return of postal ballots to those requiring them. We also ought to allow candidates time to canvass for support. The selection rules allow a minimum of twenty-two days from the issue of the calling notice to the date of the first hustings meeting. In addition, the mailing has to be printed and enveloped, usually by the volunteer selection committee, and the calling notice and manifestos must be approved by the Returning Officer, another volunteer. Add five days for that, making twenty-seven so far.
Ah yes, manifestos. We encourage candidates to produce them, and they’ve become increasingly professional over the years. Candidates need to be advised that they have been shortlisted and that a manifesto is sought. Allowing for time to write and post the invitation and a week to produce and submit the document for approval. Nine days seems reasonable, making thirty-six in total.
The selection committee have the right to interview all long-listed candidates as part of the short-listing process, and most members would reasonably expect their chosen representatives to do so. We need to invite the candidates, and a week’s notice seems to be eminently fair. After all, we need to give non-local candidates time to prepare, don’t we? The clock now stands at forty-three days…
For a potentially winnable seat, we may have meaningful competition for the selection. Therefore, we need to allow for a longlisting phase and now we’re talking about adding serious time to our schedule. The rules allow for a seven-day appeal phase for those candidates excluded at this point. Add two days for delivery of the letter advising applicants of the outcome, and you add nine days. You also need time to get application forms to the selection committee in advance of the longlisting meeting. For the purposes of this article, we’ll assume that the meeting takes place within forty-eight hours of close of applications. We’re now at fifty-four days…
Applications need to be advertised for, and we insist that Liberal Democrat News is the default medium to be used, at a minimum cost of £58.75 for a single constituency. We need to give potential applicants reasonable time to respond, be sent an application pack, complete their application form and submit it. Three weeks seems fair, and you need to give Liberal Democrat News at least a week’s notice for publication. Eighty-two days and counting…
To get this far, you need to find and appoint a Returning Officer, produce the application form, constituency profile (essential for anyone outside the constituency, and useful for some from within it), draw up selection criteria and agree the content of the advert, all of this assuming that selection committee members have been trained. This won’t happen overnight, as all of the key players are, and I don’t apologise for banging on about this, volunteers, most of whom have other roles within the Party and their local communities.
So we’ve established a timeline. What are the other factors that stand between East Bloggshire Liberal Democrats and their successful selection of their PPC? First, gender balance. There is no doubt that we have, in the past, failed dismally in selecting, and more importantly, electing, good women candidates. Despite efforts in institute quotas, a strategy that still has its adherents amongst the Parliamentary Candidates Association, we have so far opted for support, training and encouragement, an approach which, I believe, is respectful for our liberal principles although not the quick, philosophically bankrupt, fix that some senior members of the Party would like to see. That said, we do insist that selection committees make reasonable attempts to attract women applicants, particularly in potentially winnable seats. I support that, as it isn’t inconsistent with a merit-based selection system.
The second barrier is choice, something that our members seem to want, and certainly deserve. Is it healthy to allow members a choice between candidate X and reopen nominations? Does that encourage the candidate to work his/her patch in the (potentially) three-year lead-in to a General Election campaign? Is this the best possible field available to members, or will delay allow for a wider, more acceptable range of options? Yes, we have to balance these considerations against those of good campaigning practice, but is having any candidate at all the best outcome for an ambitious Local Party?
Which brings me to the third barrier, that of candidate enthusiasm. A mixture of anecdotal evidence from my fellow Returning Officers and my recent personal experience indicates a lack of willingness on the part of potential candidates to commit themselves to a potential three years of hard work, particularly in those seats where Conservatives are our primary opposition. In fairness, in those seats where we are challenging Labour, competition is much fiercer, and that seems logical, given the change in opinion polls over the past two years, and particularly since David Cameron became Conservative leader.
Finally, it is self-evident that selections are far more meaningful than they were. Twenty years ago, most selections gave the victor an opportunity to come a gallant third or, if you were very lucky, second. With greater credibility comes ambition and, if an applicant doesn’t like a decision by the selection committee or the Returning Officer, an increased likelihood of appeals. The damage done by appeals, and the delays caused, only serve to discredit our process, yet we cannot be so arrogant as to assume that selection committees and Returning Officers get it right every time, nor that candidates are entirely honourable and decent. A contentious appeal can take months to resolve, damage political careers and jeopardise potentially successful campaigns, yet we have a responsibility to ensure that justice is done.
In summary, our selection processes are the product of our principles as a political party, and reflect a responsibility to balance the needs of members, candidates and the Party generally. We’ve complicated matters by attempting a degree of social engineering and to apply natural justice, and then complained about the result.
Depressing though it may seem, we can do better. We need to communicate better, and to enable potential MPs and MEPs to plan their political careers better (and don’t ignore the fact that it is becoming a legitimate career for ambitious Lib Dems). I’m a firm believer that we need to open up the process, inform people as to how it works and of potential timetables, and to encourage greater participation in all aspects of the selection and approval processes.
And so I offer a friendly challenge to anyone reading this article, in fact to anyone in the party. If you have an idea to improve the way we approve and/or select PPCs, why not post a comment. I promise to respond meaningfully and tell you how to get your ideas debated. Why? Because it matters that members and activists have faith in our systems and that we select the best possible candidates for public office.
This piece was originally blogged at Mark Valladeres’ blog.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Debt-ridden graduates claim they are seen as cash cows
Why non-fiction books need their indexes
Changes in status: Local Elections wrap up
Institute of Urban T
AM
Ben Wood
Ed Sanderson
9 Comments
My comments are not for public consumption…..
Post them in the discussion board, then!
I published mine on Mark’s blog. Well, the publishable ones anyway…
Are the current selection rules available anywhere so I can check any comments relate to the actual rules not what I believe they are or what they were a few years ago.
(I appreciate checking your facts before posting might break several rules of blog-comments but it’s always nice to have a change…. 🙂
I echo Ed’s comments on Mark’s blog.
Set expenditure limits, not made up bureaucratic rules on campaigning by candidates that end up with appeals.
Let candidates prove they can campaign to win selections.
PPC Selection
Despite the extensive re-write it is painfully apparent that our selection rules are not fit for purpose.
In our laudable efforts to be fair, and encourage women and ethnic minority candidates we have seem to have come up with a process that is cumbersome and ineffective. There are 4 key problems:
1/ The new selection rules were late in arriving with the result that it was 7 months after the election
before any start could be made on the selection process.
2/ There are insufficient training opportunities for selection panels to be trained in the new rules.
3/ The new rules, whilst designed to reduce the scope for appeals, seem not to have done so and are
unnecessarily complex.
4/ The development of seats, particularly target (or should I now say ‘priority’) seats is hindered by
the restrictions placed on previous candidates wishing to stand for re-selection.
5/ There is a huge inconsistency amongst the regions in interpreting the rules
There is nothing that can be done now about the late arrival of the rules and I do not wish to denigrate the extremely hard work done by all that contributed to the re-write, but we must never let that happen again. If we are to change the rules they should be in place and training opportunities made available to allow selections to start as soon as possible after an election. It is not too late, however, to step up the training opportunities for selection committees.
The rules themselves have developed in such a complex way that the process is still a minefield, particularly for previous candidates seeking re-selection. These people are politically impotent until the selection process is finished, particularly if they are not councillors. One is not allowed to act in any way on behalf of the local party, send out press releases, talk to the media, contribute to the local party web site, feature in literature or act as the party’s spokesperson. I was even advised by a senior campaigns dept. member not to attend executive meetings. It is argued that to carry on campaigning in this way gives the candidate an unfair advantage. It is perfectly allowable, however, for a councillor to promote himself in any way he likes via his council work. Fair? I think not. And it is a sorry state of affairs that seeks to debar a candidate just for writing to the Lib Dem news as has happened in one selection process already.
We are constantly told that the key to winning seats is to continue working as hard as possible developing a public profile. It is no good going to sleep after an election! So what do we do – we immediately disbar the person who has been the driving force behind the campaign from any activity, the local party is devoid of direction and leadership and the general public wonder what has happened to the Lib Dem campaign. 3 – 4 years of getting name recognition out of the window! Why is there so much resistance to introducing a mechanism to allow the previous candidate to be re-selected without a full blown selection procedure? It is argued that doing so reduces the opportunities for women and ethnic minority candidates but this does not hold up. In the 49 seats who have selected to date (according to the list on this web site) 25 chose the previous PPC. Of the others 9 are new seats due to boundary changes, in a further 9 I know the previous candidate chose not to seek re-selection, which leaves 15 where the previous candidate may or may not have re-applied. Of the 25 re-selected 36% are women, the same percentage as for seats overall.
In cases where it is known that the previous, successful, candidate is re-applying the chances of attracting a meaningful field from which to choose are dramatically reduced. Who is going to go to all the trouble of putting heart and soul into a selection process when the odds are overwhelmingly in favour of the incumbent being re-selected?
It is surely not beyond the whit of man to devise a fair process that allows the local party to re-select their previous PPC. If it is good enough for M.P.s surely it is good enough for successful candidates. As a start I would suggest the following procedure:
1/ The candidate announces he/she would like to be re-selected.
2/ The local party executive vote by a simple majority whether they are in favour of re-selection or not.
3/ The national party (campaigns dept, candidates dept?) endorse the decision based on previous
performance. You could put a restriction, for example, only allowing candidates who have demonstrably moved the seat forward to follow this route.
4/ Local party members vote on re-selection at specially called meeting and/or by postal ballot. You could
perhaps, ask for a 2/3rdsmajority of those voting.
If any of the above go against the candidate then a full selection process goes ahead to where the candidate can apply if he/she so wishes.
It is quite apparent that there is inconsistency in applying the rules. This is particularly apparent in the way previous candidates seeking re-selection are treated. This varies on the one hand from candidates being able to virtually carry on as though they were the PPC and carry out all the associated activities, to the other extreme where all reference to them is removed from the local party web site and literature, and they are not allowed to carry on in any meaningful way.
The party is at an historic threshold. We will only move forward by electing more MPs and this requires constant and consistent campaigning to build up support, which the current selection rules seem to do their best to undermine. The rules need to be fair, transparent, consistently interpreted and far less complex so that we can have candidates in place campaigning to win at the earliest opportunity.
MIke Treleaven
Three short points on the previous contribution:
1 – It was not the so-called late arrival of the selection rules that slowed down candidate selection after the General election but the failure of candidates at that election and their local parties to promptly return their review forms to allow a new approved candidates list to be published.
2 – The rules are less complicated and easier to understand than the Representation of the People Act that covers the ‘real election’. Perhaps we just have to face the fact that candidates cannot cope with any election without an agent to look after them.
3 – There was constitutional process to allow the re-selection of the previous candidate after an election it was deleted from the Federal Constitution by a two-thirds majority of Conference after the 1992 election and no attempt has been made to re-introduce it in the last 14 years which doesn’t suggest it has wide popular support.
David
“Perhaps we just have to face the fact that candidates cannot cope with any election without an agent to look after them.”
Shall we put that to the vote 🙂
I don’t like the idea of the party exec deciding to keep the same candidate – even if they are an MP. What happens if the views of the Exec and the membership are at odds. One possibility might be to allow parties who want some continuity to select a candidate for more than one election.
(Mind you local parties not returning forms when they were meant to – that is a shock 🙂
In reply to David Allworthy’s comments:
1/ If we have to wait until all candidates have been reviewed before before selection starts we are in a sorry state. Perhaps if we had a system where selections could start but only those candidadte who had been satisfactorily reviewed could apply it might encourage the early completion of forms!! The rules were agreed on Nov 29th. 2005 and many parties were chmping at the bit waiting to get started.
2/ I hope your suggestion that candidates cannot cope with an election without an agent is tongue in cheek! The problem with the rules is that there are too many opportunities for time wasting and superfluous challenges, too many instances of inconsistent interpretation by returning officers and their complicated nature requires too great a training need for selection panels
3/ We have moved on just a tad since 1992. We have changed from being an amateur party with a minimal number of MPs to a serious opposition party – the only real opposition party – with aspirations to governemnt. We need to move with the times and become a professional campaigning organisation if we are to realise these aims. The Tories had 22 candidates re-selected and campaigning in key seats by November 2005. We had none. The method by which we allow existing candidates is something that can be discussed – it just seems a waste of time, money, effort and, above all, campaigning not to have a system that allows re-selection when it is so patently obvious that in the vast majority of cases the incumbent wins.