This May, thousands of voters like me face a democratic void – our voices silenced as local elections are suspended under the convenient guise of “fast-track devolution” and Local Government Reorganisation (LGR). While Labour and Conservative local councillors rushed to chase this programme in pursuit of the “sunlit uplands” of devolution and LGR, the truth is far more troubling. Both parties appear all too willing to dodge voter scrutiny, with the government eagerly agreeing to cancel elections in Hampshire for at least a year at their request. The result? County councillors continuing to wield power without a mandate from May onwards.
Over recent months, I’ve investigated how LGR truly affects women’s representation and political diversity. I’m about to share my findings with Elect Her and the Fawcett Society – non-partisan organisations campaigning against gender inequality in our politics. The recent Lib Dem Voice article examining LGR’s impact on younger candidates struck a chord with me, compelling me to speak out and expand on these urgent concerns.
From my investigation into the councils highlighted by the government as LGR “success stories”, it confirms what many of us have suspected: women’s representation in local government – already in a deeply troubling state – will regress under LGR. Political diversity suffers a similar fate, with smaller parties, including Liberal Democrats, bearing a disproportionate burden of this democratic retreat. The broken two-party system strikes again!
LGR will inevitably reduce the number of councillors, leading to fewer women holding office. This reverses the slow but steady progress documented in the 2022 LGA Census.
Despite being marketed as “transformative” and an opportunity for “democratic renewal”, it is anything but – LGR actively undermines gender parity and widens representation gaps. Most devastatingly, it creates nearly insurmountable barriers for women from smaller parties and independent candidates – the very voices often bringing fresh perspectives to local governance.
While Westminster celebrates incremental progress in women’s parliamentary representation, it has shamefully neglected the growing gender imbalance in our local councils – the very bodies that shape our daily lives and communities. Many parliamentarians began their careers in local government, learning firsthand how policy impacts communities and developing the skills to represent constituents effectively.
This pipeline makes the gender disparity at the local level not just concerning for today, but devastating for long-term political equality.
Of course, I’ve embraced and enjoyed our party’s 2024 General Election successes and welcome strategic discussions about winning more elections, but these conversations ring painfully hollow when they ignore the fundamental crisis of women’s underrepresentation in council chambers nationwide. Addressing this imbalance strengthens not only local governance but creates a more diverse, experienced pool of candidates ready for higher office.
It’s time we recognised local government as the foundation of our democratic system and treated its growing gender gap as the democratic emergency it truly is. Our communities deserve better. Our democracy demands it.
* Sally Yalden is a parish councillor and a Liberal Democrat borough councillor for Test Valley Borough Council. Sally also works for Make Votes Matter which is the national cross-party campaign for proportional representation.
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17 Comments
I support the move to unitary authority since it will reduce costs and eliminate the division of authority.
LGR will inevitably reduce the number of councillors, leading to fewer women holding office.
Reducing the number of councillors is part of the objectives, and will reduce costs. It will also result in fewer men holding office.
@Mohammed Amin. As I’ve said before, there is no real evidence that unitary councils reduce the cost of local government. Because wider local government government can’t be fully adressed by unitaries, the rersult will be a proliferation of quangos without direct election, not least the combined authorities to keep an eye on on the elected Mayors and to manage county wide services like fire, police and public transport.
In 1973, when there was major local government reorganisation, the new district councils and county councils were more expensive than what had gone before, messy though the old system was. For example, little jobs like clearing land drains, which small councils had done unoffically for years, ceased to be done and within a decade floods resulted from blocked culverts and land drains at huge cost and with much damage.
No, Mr Amin. Unitary councils without regional government are a thoroughly bad idea idea and the result of this government’s botched plans will screw up local government for years.
And yes, Sally Yalden, women and minorities will be in shorter supply. If for no other reasons that wards will become large and unwieldy and the working hours of the new councils will be less friendly, being mainly during the day. And (mainly white) men will not take kindly to their numbers being reduced and will push out women and minorities in order to maintain their numbers.
I think some may be missing the point that they are not creating unitary authorities. They are creating two levels of authority which will be closer in size and hence overlap more. The ‘Unitary’ level will be too big to understand local issues and the ‘Combined’ authorities will be too small to take real powers from central government in the way that regional government could. Instead, they will create exactly the kind of duplication that their advocates claim to be addressing.
It’s interesting, but disappointing how many LibDems look on LGR at a micro level coming out in favour of it or against it, but ultimately only with a focus on one small aspect, be it
1) Mohammed who repeatedly tells us he believes (without offering any evidence) that it will reduce costs, while almost all those who speak on it with experience tell us that
– LGR costs huge amounts of wasted effort for many years (most say 5 to 10) and
– any reduced costs result from cuts to services, not efficiencies,
– non-financial aspects, like the quality of local representation, are totally ignored
2) Sally, who mentions the adverse effects on democracy itself, but then quickly shifts focus onto on its adverse effects on one particular group – women’s representation.
3) Others, usually very motivated local councillors who refer to the problems, but then focus soley on “It’s a bad idea, but it’s down to us to make it work.”
They are all missing the main point of LGR – to retrench the power of the big two while completely stiffing the LibDems!!
So
A) delay elections
– Labour. Losing votes hand over fist due to incompetence and intransigence – Great!!
– Tory. About to lose big style – Thanks Labour!
– LibDems. About to win lots of seats, not without elections!
B) Reduce Councillors
– Labour, More money for those that remain. Bigger Payroll vote
– Tory. More money for those that remain. Thanks!
– LibDems. Larger wards, less local representation, more work.
C) Elected Mayors
– Huge electorate 500k voters or more, Great for parties backed by big money
– Labour. FPTP Great! Even more serious payroll vote, (Mayor plus about 10 appointees) Great! central control of selection to ensure total loyalty to the party Great!,
– Tory. FPTP Great! Enormous power and economic opportunity with no effective scrutiny – Think Tees Valley and Houchen,
– Reform. Come On Elon, give us your cash!!
– Lib Dems. How many leaflets!!!
Local electors – More overpaid politicos, no accountability, never see them. What’s not to hate?
But what is the LibDem position on all this. Well there isn’t one!
Our policy is many years out of date and doesn’t even consider the possibility of huge Combined Authorities with one man (or woman) in almost total charge, elected by FPTP, so we leave it to each Council group to make its own mind up!
The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society …
And we have dozens of detailed policies on how we would build all the new bits we want,
But on Safeguarding the bits that work quite well – We have nothing!!
The big parties have been destroying our one area of massive strength for nearly 30 years now. Conservatives with Labour approval from 1985 to 2023, and now Labour are about to deliver the Coup de Gras.
Mick gets it. I get it.
It’s hiding in plain sight, but Is there anybody else who sees it?
@David Evans is right. We should be opposing this at national level. The Government calls it devolution. It is centralisation. It’s not even Local Government reorganisation, it’s local government abolition. The minimum size for ‘unitary’ authorities is 500,000. That’s not local. Some counties won’t be big enough to qualify. The ‘combined authority’ layer is not taking any significant new powers from government. It’s taking them from counties, unitaries and districts.
@Mohammed Amin My neighbouring council of Thurrock is currently a unitary authority , population 176,877. It will be moving to two tiers. One will almost certainly be Essex combined authority, population 1,877,301. The other is not obvious but there aren’t many ways to divide Essex in three along existing boundaries and my guess is that Thurrock would join with Southend-on-Sea, Castle Point, Rochford and Basildon, total population 723,450. They will not be able to deliver all their services from the centre (a marsh near Pitsea) so they will probably have all their existing bureaucracy plus a new layer to coordinate them and one to liase with Essex on all the areas of joint control.
@Mohammed Amin – Perhaps you need to explain why you hate democracy.
The LGR and unitary authorities is all about reducing democratic representation and participation, whilst increasing the ease at which cronyism and corruption can become institutionalised.
There is another hidden cost to LGR – additional procurement, contracting and third sector overheads.
A few years back there was a single area with a single authority known as Northamptonshire. today there is West Northamptonshire and North Northamptonshire. Organisations that span both and only had to deal with a single authority now have to deal with two. Services which once were standard across the entire county are now subject to different procurements…
Just going through one presently where the original county wide contract supported a small team, providing absence cover. Obviously under the two new contracts each contract is too small to run such a team, so there will be layoffs and replacement of full time posts with part-time posts with no slack for absence cover.
Personally, from many years of experience in business, reorganisation is, all to often, an excuse that enables people to avoid actually delivering services.
“One particular group” ie a majority of the population but only a third of the councillors!
Well done Sally. As someone elected to a large Lib Dem council group (majority female) aged 27 it is depressing to see things going backwards 30 years later.
Yes Ruth, I totally agree with you and Sally that we need to get more Lib Dem women elected to councils and indeed to every level of our democratic bodies. I am also disappointed that that things have apparently gone backwards for the Lib Dems in that regard for the Lib Dems over the last 30 years (I don’t have detailed comparative data, but totally accept your expertise in this area).
However, personally I regard another particular group in our country as being even more important, and although that group cannot claim to be a majority, it has consistently been significantly under-represented in our democratic institutions for many decades. And that group is the Liberal Democrats and that is the most important factor for me, because every extra Lib Dem we get elected, whether a man or a woman, will also work and fight not only to get more Lib Dems elected, but also more Lib Dem women and any other under-represented group of Lib Dems elected too.
Now in that part of my comment I may have expressed my point less well than I should, but 250 words is never enough for a reasoned argument, but I hope you and Sally would engage in my point that LGR is not just bad for women, but more importantly, it is very damaging (indeed potentially catastrophic) for the LibDems.
So I would ask you please consider and hopefully make a comment here on my whole piece and not just three words.
Whatever the pros and cons of LGR, I am surprised there is not more alarm at the decision to postpone this May’s local elections, allegedly to prevent disruption to the negotiation process. This sets an egregious precedent. Government can now postpone a GE if there is an economic crisis ? Defined how and by whom ? That elections should take place regularly as prescribe by law should be non negotiable. Add to that comments about revamping democracy to save money and I wonder if as a nation we are slowly but surely coming round to the conclusion that autocracy might be an acceptable option in the future.
Indeed Chris, you are also completely right. LGR has been a game played by the big two at the expense of the Lib Dems and democracy itself.
1) Take a largely rural county, but with one or two larger towns in it. The Lib Dems hold or come close to holding the balance of power of the county quite regularly, and due to local activity maybe even control a couple of districts.
2) Convert to unitaries on the pretence that change = improvement and that costs savings worked out by consultants are always achieved at the price they suggest and with the savings they fictionalise. The towns will generally be solid Labour with a tiny Conservative presence and a reasonably sized but not threatening Lib Dem presence.
The remaining rural area is solid Con with a small Labour presence and another reasonably sized but not threatening Lib Dem presence. Hey presto, we’ve got our bit and they have theirs and the Yellows are out of power completely.
3) Realise later that the unitaries are almost always too small to do the strategic stuff (Transport, economic development etc.) and then rebuild the counties, but in order to keep the Lib Dems out, make it a single elected mayor elected by FPTP, with a huge electorate, too big for the Lib Dems to be able to compete.
4) Job done. Fizz all round at Conservative head office and Beer and sandwiches at Labour HQ.
While it may be true that the current LGR will make it harder for the LibDems to win many local authorities, I think it’s a mistake to see that as a deliberate conspiracy by the Government. I was in the Labour Party for many years and believe me, Labour activists and MPs almost universally have an almost tribal hatred for the Tories. On the whole they don’t think much of the LibDems but that’s nothing to what they feel against the Tories. There is just no way they would willingly conspire in a way to benefit the Tories against the LibDems. Besides, they know perfectly well that the geographical concentration of LibDem votes means the LibDems are a greater threat to the Tories than to themselves.
I’d be fairly confident that the LGR is based on a (misguided?) belief by an instinctively centralising Government desperate to cut costs that it will cut costs. And to the extent that the postponement of some of this year’s elections has a political motivation, it’s more likely to be a desire to prevent Reform from advancing and creating strongholds in Labour areas (something that as it happens LibDems probably have shared interest in).
@ David Evans, Hia David, I have written around about 50 articles for LDV over the last 14 years, under my married name Ruth Bright – if you want to examine the entire canon or just critique the odd bit or line of one my posts that’s cool with me.
Between the ages of 18 and 58 I have spent more money and hours than I care to mention getting Lib Dem men elected – 8 General Elections trying to get a man elected and only 3 trying to get a Lib Dem woman elected. Before I retire/pop my clogs I don’t doubt that I will indulge in many more attempts to get Lib Dems of every conceivable kind elected.
@ChrisCory. Under our (largely) unwritten constitution no government can bind its successors. So any government with a compliant majority in parliament can alter or cancel any aspect of our laws including the rules about elections. It has already happened before (late eighteenth or early nineteenth century I think) when elections were changed to every 7 years and during WW1 and WW2 when there were no general elections for 8 and 10 years respectively.
That is why we LibDems want a written constitution to guarantee basic rights and democracy cannot be altered by the government of the day for its own ends.
Hello Simon(R),
Thanks for the comment. Exchange of views is important in improving our ideas and with that in mind, I have to add some extra context to your comment on Labour tribalism, where my experience is fundamentally different from yours.
Having worked as an activist in Merseyside for over twenty years, my experience is that Labour activists’ tribal hatred was against whichever party was a threat to them. Historically this was almost entirely the Conservatives, where up until the late 1970s the LibDems were virtually no threat to Labour councils anywhere. However subsequently, Labour in Liverpool and St.Helens took to hating LibDems with avengence: Liverpool from 1979 after David Alton won Edge Hill and the following Council elections where we won more seats than Labour on that council, and St Helens from 2006 when we took control from them. Old, Authoritarian, Hard Labour of course but typical of so many council groups in the North – definitely not Social Democrat or Fabian in any sense. I would be interested in where your local experience was.
As for your thoughts on LGR, it’s definitely not a conspiracy, just a meeting of minds where the separation of solid Labour and Conservative heartlands into separate authorities, designed to create one party states for one at the cost of one party states elsewhere for the other has the clear and obvious side benefit of stiffing the LibDems.
Hi Ruth, and thanks for the clarification about your name. Indeed, your history sounds very much like mine. However, as with all Lib Dems, we can all find points to disagree on but I believe that it is vital we do not allow disagreement on the choice of a few words to be used as if it undermines the validity of an entire comment.
Hence I am rather saddened when you say “if you want to examine the entire canon or just critique the odd bit or line of one my posts that’s cool with me,” as that is precisely the way that too many avoid even thinking about new, difficult problems by instead sidetracking debate once again into a favourite old problem.
Discrimination against women is certainly an old problem, but not a favourite one 😊