Cabinet power-shift slammed by backbenchers

Richard Evans, local democracy reporter

Concerned backbench councillors have hit out a lack of democracy, complaining that big decisions are not being made democratically by the majority but by a powerful few.

In the year 2000, the UK Government introduced the Local Government Act and cabinet system, which means many crucial decisions are taken by the council leader and his or her hand-picked selection of cabinet members.

Prior to this, a democratic group system allowed all councillors to participate in reaching a decision.

In the current system, various scrutiny committees scrutinise matters and make recommendations before matters are later decided by the cabinet or full council.

Democratic process

At a democratic services committee meeting on Monday, several councillors slammed the democratic process in Conwy, claiming that decisions were made behind closed doors by a powerful few, referencing the current row over the closure of public toilets.

The committee was debating a self-assessment on scrutiny committees and whether there should be a formal review of their functions.

One of the recommendations from a Financial Peer Review in June 2023 was that “the council should streamline its processes around decision making”.

Another recommendation raised the question of whether presenting documents to various bodies such as working groups, programme boards, subcommittees, and scrutiny committees added value to the decision-making process.

This raised serious concerns in the council chamber as several councillors claimed important decisions were being made by the cabinet – without consulting all members.

Scrutiny

Cllr David Carr said it was important scrutiny committees remained an integral part of local democracy and accused senior councillors and Conwy’s chief executive of not turning up to recent meetings.

“When we changed to a cabinet system, the whole point of scrutiny was to scrutinise what the cabinet were doing,” he said.

“Over the years scrutiny has declined in this authority.

“The amount of scrutiny in the committees we had originally has been reduced and reduced.

“I think this report is talking about streamlining and is talking about time management. What we are going to get is councillors having less of a say.

“At the moment, I think a lot of the problems with this council identified, if you go and speak to residents, who are not happy with the cuts in frontline services, is decisions are taken by too few people, and I think we should keep the status quo at the very least.

“I think we shouldn’t be scrutinising scrutiny.

“I went to the social services and health scrutiny committee last week, and there was a very important report about safeguarding.

“The lead officer, the chief executive, and the portfolio (holder/councillor) didn’t even bother to attend. They had more important things to do.

“I think people now just expect scrutiny now to vote things through, and there was a debate on it, and I’m quite welcoming of the fact we do have debates on things.

“And then there is this issue of the (closing public) toilets. It was never actually discussed at the finances and resources meeting last Monday.

Things are just sort of not getting through.

“Our residents are asking us. We are having big changes in this county, particularly with cuts in frontline services.

“My residents are asking me, ‘Can we do something about this?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m doing my best, but the thing is these decisions seem to be taken before we can have a debate on them.’

“So I’m against the watering down of scrutiny committees.”

He added: “I don’t get a vote on this committee, but if I was going to vote, I’d vote to take the status quo because, as Chris (Cllr Hughes) said, scrutiny is very important, particularly to residents and particularly to councillors to have their say.

“So I don’t want to see time management and a more streamlined scrutiny because what that means is less say yet more power in the hands of fewer people.”

Working groups

Cllr Chris Hughes said he was one of a few councillors who remembered being involved in the old group committee system.

The Colwyn Bay councillor also claimed working groups such as scrutiny committees had already been diluted within the authority.

He said: “During one efficiency, we went from having working groups, which there were a lot of, to working on a more project board basis.

“Whereas bench members dominated the working groups, the project boards are dominated in the main by cabinet members, so we didn’t effectively make it more efficient – we just changed the balance of power to a degree, and I do feel that anything that seeks to reduce further the impact or input from scrutiny will (mean scrutiny will) be doing about 70 or 80% less than what scrutiny was doing when it was first introduced.”

Council officer Sian Williams responded: “I would be surprised if council agreed to review scrutiny function with the purpose of reducing its effectiveness or watering it down in any way.

“Personally, I don’t think that’s the aim of any type of review.”

She added: “It is about the scrutiny function, making it effective, and not to reduce it or water it down in any way in my opinion.”

Effort

Cllr Paul Luckock then took aim at many of his colleagues, insinuating many councillors weren’t putting in enough effort to do their job.

“Let me be frank. Out of all our councillors – I think we have got 55, haven’t we? I do worry about the participation and the questioning of some councillors through the scrutiny procedure,” he said.

“I don’t think participation is great enough, and I don’t think questioning is strong enough, interrogating the detail enough. Most councillors just come along and say, ‘Good report. Well done.’

“Not most but a significant number, and that makes me very uncomfortable.

“I think there is still far too much complacency, and I would like to see more councillors participating, interrogating the detail, and then when we do things wrong – and we do get things wrong – we can be more confident we did the work beforehand, and I’m not sure we always do do the work beforehand to ensure we get the best outcomes.”

Cllr Goronwy Edwards added he was surprised more backbenchers didn’t attend cabinet meetings but said both the council and the cabinet had less power to make decisions due to lack of funding from both UK and Welsh Government.

Cllr Cheryl Carlisle added: “Scrutiny is absolutely vital. The (public) toilets issue shows just that.”

The committee recommended to full council that officers make SMART – specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, and time-bound – recommendations across all committee reports that go to scrutiny and ensure these are consistently implemented.

Chairman Cllr Harry Saville said the committee will now wait for a Welsh initiative conference this autumn and take stock.