What the Faragists confront: how local Councils are actually run(mostly by law)
Local Elections in England saw Reform take control of a number of Councils from Kent (which didn’t end well last time the Faragists were in charge) to Durham.
In Reform only one voice counts and its that of the owner Nigel Farage. On Friday he was making threats to local council staff. Working from home will be banned, work on climate change and diversity and inclusion will be stopped, auditors will be called in.
Leaving aside Farage’s trademark bullshit the realities are very different.
In 50 years of political and union activity on the left I have never been a Councillor. I have stood for election on occasion safe in the knowledge (in Tottenham) that I’d get an OK vote but not one that would get me elected.
There was a reason. For more or less thirty years I ran the TUC in the Haringey area of North London. Of course that involved evening meetings and various bureaucratic obligations. It also involved, mostly, working with the Labour Council and Councillors. Their evening meetings and responsibilities far exceeded mine and often they didn’t, however much effort was made, have too much to show for it.
Running a Council is a tough job and in the austerity years 2010-? It has got a lot harder.
Of course there are still political choices to be made- see the long running campaigns to get Councils to divest pension fund investments from companies that deal with Israel. As often there are legal issues.
The Times (3rd May) carries some comments from Jonathan Carr-West, Head of the Local Government Information Unit.
He notes that 70-80% of Council spending is spent on adult social care and children’s services. These are legal duties. They can’t be ‘audited’ away by the Faragists.
Carr-West notes that many Councils are carrying deficits of £100m+ and that cutting areas such as climate change and Diversity and Equality and Inclusion, obsessions of the Faragists, will make little difference. He also adds that work in the latter area is mostly to make sure the Equality Act is complied with. It’s a legal obligation and however much the Faragists want to abolish it, they can’t. It will be interesting to see how many of the Reform Councillors elected on 1st May are still there in 12 months and if they are whether they are still Reform members. Rhetoric and reality are about to collide.
Inciteful comments, thank you.
Here in Durham the Council has been closing offices including County Hall itself. This has been facilitated by having a lot of staff working from home. If the new Council bans working from home they may find they do not have enough desks to go round.