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labourpainsandgains · 23 days ago

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Spending Review - how does Local Government get its fair share? Maybe say we need it for bombs!

On 11th June Chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce the results of the spending review. Millions of words have already been written lobbying for this and that cause. None more so than the defence industry who tell us the world isn't a safe place (was it ever?) and we need to spend more and more on bombs, drones, guns and weapons of mass destruction to 'keep us safe'. For years the argument on nuclear weapons was that they were a deterrent against attacks by others. However attacks and wars come in difference guises now and our ownership of nuclear weapons hasn't exactly kept us safe from various attacks. The second biggest owner of nuclear weapons - Russia - has been in a war with Ukraine for 3 years and the deterrent theory has been tested there and proven to be (thankfully) unworkable - for the avoidance of any doubt I'm not advocating that Russia nuke Ukraine! Quite the opposite - both sides have spent billions fighting a war for land and the fact that Russia was a nuclear power didn't stop Ukraine fighting back.

What does all this geo-politics have to do with local government I hear at least one of you ask? Well I'm fairly sure that the MOD and the cheerleaders for defence spending will win the argument with the Treasury on increasing defence spending. When Labour put it up to what the Tories and Reform have called for, they will then change the goalposts and call for more.

If Reeves does not radically alter the 'fiscal rules' set by backroom blokes in the city, then the funds allocated to the issues that effect our day to day lives will be smaller. Less money for the NHS, for Local Government, for Transport, for infrastructure projects, for housing etc.

Local Government had its money cut by the Tory/Lib Dem government in 2011 and this continued every year until last years general election. Not only did they cut the budget but they changed the formulas for working out the distribution of the money meaning in reality that the poorer areas got poorer. Yes that's right - they took money from those councils with the greatest need and gave it to the wealthier areas. Sunak boasted about it to Tory members in Tunbridge Wells and thankfully it was caught on camera. Not that they tried to hide it. It was a planned policy of the Tories.

So government grants went down and to make up the shortfall came 3 things.

Increases to Council Tax so that people blame their local council for the increases not the central government. In cities with tight boundaries like Nottingham where 80% of the Council Tax is band A or B, then this brought in very little revenue in comparison to areas where band D was the norm. Councils were also made to charge for social care funding via council tax too instead of this being picked up nationally.

Increases in fees and charges - making all day to day issues more expensive like car parking, swimming lessons, hiring community rooms, burials, paying for your garden waste to be collected and much more.

Cuts to services. Big cuts especially in the inner city councils who suffered the highest losses. So we saw the end of Sure Start and Children Centres. Youth clubs became a fond memory. Local Grants to the arts sector were decimated. Preventative work which we all know saves money in the long term was scrapped. Community centres closed in some areas and scaled back activities in others, surviving in the better off areas by charging a lot more for local events.

So yes 14 years of Tory government cuts brought councils to their knees. Over 30 of them now only survive by a crazy system of 'exceptional financial support' (ESF) which is no longer exceptional given how many councils have applied for it. Why is it crazy? Well to pay it back you have to sell off council assets to find the money. Like selling your cooker and sofa to pay your rent or mortgage.

So Labour has been in power for almost a year - are things better? Well the jury is very much still out. The eyes will be on the spending review to see if any increase is meaningful and can stop the rot. There is talk of a 3 year settlement making planning easier - it seems so obvious but its not happened before. Changing the formula back to recognising deprivation and poverty in the allocations would also help. Allowing councils to borrow more cheaply for infrastructure projects would help too. Councils that have had to use EFS need to be treated better by the push to sell everything being scrapped and a new approach to getting these councils back on an even keel. However Councils need an above inflation real terms increase to fix the mess our local communities are in.

Finally Labour needs to hold its nerve with its push for local government reorganisation. The principle of having less tiers of local government is a good one. Having District and County Councils overlapping the same areas is a waste of precious resources. By redrawing the map of local government with smaller unitary councils like Nottingham and Derby being linked to their natural neighbours will bring stability and make for better planning in areas which naturally go together.

So I will watch the Chancellors spending review with my fingers crossed that councils start to get a better deal but I suspect the multi national defence industry will be the ones popping the champagne corks when she sits down. They have more lobbyists than children and councils have & they have the fear factor. In a world where fear beats hope we have an uphill battle to get money allocated to making things better locally.

Maybe if we ask the Defence Industry nicely they might sponsor a children's centre? The Lockheed Martin Tiny Tots group or the Boeing Youth Club could well be where we fundraise next to keep essential services going.

Cllr Steve Battlemuch (personal capacity blog!)

#spendingreview #councils #budgets #labour

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labourpainsandgains · 1 month ago

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Election fallout and trying to get things done as a backbencher.

My latest blog comes 2 weeks after the Reform breakthrough in the elections on May 1st. Whilst my council area - Nottingham City - didn’t face elections and are not due our next round until May 2027, we will however be dealing with the consequences of these results.

Nottingham City is surrounded by 7 District Councils and a County Council. It was the Notts County Council that had elections where control changed from Conservative to Reform. Before the election Reform had 1 County Cllr and he was originally elected as a Tory. Now they have 40. Well it was 40 but 1 has stood down already costing the voters more money in having to have a new by-election.

In a previous blog post I wrote about the importance of local government reorganisation and why we need less councils. Nottingham City covers all aspects of local government in our area. The 7 Districts and the County Council share their responsibility between them. We could and should go from 9 councils to 2 with a sensible rationalisation.

We now await the views of the new Reform Cllrs to see what their attitude is. I suspect it will be whatever Nigel Farage tells them their view is but let’s see. If they are true to their rhetoric of wanting to cut back on ‘waste’ you would expect them to back moving from 9 to 2 councils but let’s see!

What I do know is having 39 new Cllrs running a big authority will be a challenge for any party, never mind one that is new and has little or no track record in local government. Watch this space to see if the wheels come off the Reform bandwagon.

Getting Things Done -

I’m often asked by friends and residents - “do you ever feel like you have achieved anything as a Cllr or is it all boring meetings and grief about parking and bins?”

Well there are certainly plenty of boring meetings ( and some decent ones too) alongside a load of grief about local issues. But that’s what the job is and if you don’t like trying to help people there isn’t much point being a Cllr. So I do try to respond quickly to every email and phone message. We have a casework system in the council for chasing departments to get things fixed or investigated. Sometimes I’m able to just signpost people to others who can help. Some of the requests are almost impossible to resolve, some are out of my hands (especially school places) but some can be sorted with a quick call or email. In the past week alone I’ve had cases about the following-

Trees

Parking schemes

Neighbour disputes

Untidy areas

Pot Holes

Allotments

Buying council property

Unsafe roads

Empty properties

Meals on wheels

These are all from the last 4 days. I’ll get some resolved and some will be harder to do. However it’s the crux to me of being a Cllr, if you don’t do this part of the job well and be accessible then you will be another politician who people say “doesn’t listen”.

After 12 years of casework I hope Wollaton West residents say “well he tries, he wins some and loses some but he tries”.

However as a backbencher (ie not being an executive cllr who helps run the council ) apart from local casework what do you do?

Well there are various council committees you sit on and hopefully contribute to. One of these for me is a strange committee which oversees the maintenance of Trent Bridge. When it was built a trust was set up to maintain it in the future for repairs etc. This has evolved over time into a council committee which manages a property portfolio of buildings which provide an income for those repairs and improvements. Surplus funds from that portfolio can go back into the general running of the city provided that the Bridge is always looked after.

When I came back onto this committee last May I decided I wanted to make serious improvements to the Bridge a priority. Firstly I want to see a substantial change to the block bollards that were put on the bridge in 2017 on the orders of the government of the day. I understand why they were installed following a spate of attacks using vehicles in crowded places, but the ones we have are ugly, full of graffiti and have a number of practical drawbacks too. On match days they don’t help as people walk on the road anyway and at other times cyclists complain they are dangerous.

Given the location of the Bridge and its proximity to the Forest and Cricket ground I believe we can do a lot better than the blocks we have. In the short term they should be painted and covered in sport related artwork. In the medium term they should be replaced by more appropriate stand alone bollards, again hopefully with a tasteful sporting theme. Thankfully my social media posts on the issue has started to find some traction and the press are now interested. So following interviews with Notts TV, the Post and the BBC I’m hopeful that we might make some progress. As ever money will be a stumbling block but with goodwill from a number of organisations I’m sure we can make it happen.

As football fans from across Europe cross the bridge in the autumn for the first time in 30 years I hope the ugly blocks are at least covered and eventually replaced. If and when that happens I’ll be happy and move onto another campaign.

Steve Battlemuch -

An unofficial Cllr blog

Find more about what I do on X and Bluesky.

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labourpainsandgains · 2 months ago

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Why are you knocking on my door? -

Why do political parties do door to door canvassing? Does it work? Is it safe? Can anyone do it? Is telephone canvassing more effective? What do people tell you and do you believe them?

I'll try to answer all this and more in this latest blog which is timely given the local elections on the 1st May.

"Ah you are only here because there is an election happening" - is a well used phrase by voters opening their doors. It might be the first time that door has been knocked for ages, even years, so there is some justification for that phrase but in reality the level of canvassing massively varies from area to area. It often depends on the type of area it is, for example is it a council area which changes hands a lot in elections or a parliamentary seat that is marginal. In those places you would expect more door step activity as sometimes elections can be won or lost by a handful of votes (especially council seats).

In Nottingham however despite it being an area with 3 labour MPs and the vast majority of Cllrs being Labour (51/55 at the last elections) we have always done a lot of doorstep work. The mantra was always don't take voters for granted. So we do canvassing every week - on average maybe 4 sessions a week for maybe 44 weeks of the year. Therefore when you knock on a door a few months into a 4 year council term or after a Parliamentary election you can immediately open with - "see we don't just come at election times!".

Why do Parties do it? The basic answer is to identify who supports your party. This has multiple benefits. In the immediate period it gives a very quick snap shot of the mood of the electorate. In an election period this is vital but even in other periods it is useful to pick up casework as Cllrs and for the MP if you have one. It helps you identify issues that people care about but also means you can target leaflets and activity on the election day itself towards 'potential labour voters' rather than people who either won't vote or will vote for another party. This saves time and money - for example in my council ward there are approx 6500 households (11,000 voters) but maybe around 3000 who vote Labour so we can then hone in on the ones who we expect to support us the closer we get to polling day.

This obviously potential flaw with this strategy is what if people lie to you about their intention, or just refuse to say or the person doing the canvassing doesn't ask the right questions or just wants to be optimistic when going back to the board runner (data keeper). "Oh yes put all 4 people there as Labour" having only spoken to one person who didn't specifically say they would vote for you but was friendly so it was a bit confusing! So the key is to only rely on people who say explicitly that they will vote for you on the data. Undecided and against is also useful information but the key is not to guess!

In my experience there are not many people who openly try to lie or deceive you. They are far more likely to say "I prefer not to say" or "I don't discuss that". Some will say they are still undecided. Its often body language which gives it away - like shutting the door quickly or giving you the death stare!

Conversations can last between 5 seconds and 5 minutes but the textbook guide would say ideally around 1-2 mins. Enough time to establish a rapport, discuss an issue and ask a question about voting intention. If you are a Cllr or the MP the discussions take longer in your own area as the opportunity to raise an issue close to peoples hearts is there.

Only very occasionally does it get heated. I found this a bit during the Brexit referendum and also in the 2019 General Election. Apart from these times people who don't like the colour of your badge or once you open the conversation with who you are will often just shut the door on you quickly. Only once in Mansfield in 2019 did a bloke turn round and drop his trousers and asked me to "shove your leaflet up my arse". I politely declined his invitation and put him down as 'against' on the sheets!

So overall I think there is real merit in canvassing, it certainly keeps you grounded in the issues and you quickly get a sense of the mood after a few doors. There is a growing trend to not opening the door so a lot of time is wasted but you always have some form of leaflet you can leave through the door so someone knows you have been. It can obviously be a bit intrusive as some won't want to be disturbed but strangely some do answer the door occasionally in various states of undress!

Some prefer general stalls in shopping areas as people then make an conscious effort to talk to you or walk past you but whilst the 'presence' is good for general profile, it doesn't identify particular voters that you can then use later for targeted work. Others prefer phone canvassing as it takes away the imposition of the door knock and can be done at times that you might not choose to canvass door to door but you don't get to see the voter and often the conversation is much shorter than you have on the doorstep.

Canvassing only really works if you keep the data up to date. Just because someone canvassed Labour in 1997 or 2017 doesn't mean they will now! To run a successful election campaign you need a lot of data - called contact rate in the trade - because if you have knocked on 80% of the doors in a ward and established that 40% of those will vote for you, then the key is getting them to do this on the day (or 2 weeks before if they are postal voters). If your contact rate is very low or massively old you are really just running around in hope rather than any expectation on polling day.

The line about some parties not canvassing in some areas because they always win or always lose has been true over the years. The Tories hardly ever canvass in Nottingham, probably because they have given up here. Labour win a lot here but still canvass a lot, it acts as a way of getting feedback for Cllrs and the MPs on issues. It was telling however that when David Miliband gave up being an MP in South Shields and there was a by-election there, the contact rate the local party had was less than 5%. They were used to 'weighing the labour votes there' - but its complacency like that, that backfires when noises off say 'they don't care about you anymore' and they are probably right.

If someone knocks on your door on election day its almost certainly because at some point you promised your vote to that party! Be kind to them and go out and vote!

Footnote - We are sometimes asked how we have peoples details when we say hello Mrs Smith - well its from the electoral register which is available to political parties for this purpose. Data is then transferred onto parties own systems to enable the canvass sessions to take place. Its all available now online in an app but for years we used masses of paper copies which board runners tried to keep from getting wet or blowing away. Technology has certainly made canvassing easier in that respect!

#Canvassing #LabourDoorstep #Voters

Steve Battlemuch

Labour Cllr in Nottingham City

blogs in a personal capacity

Find me on X and Bluesky

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labourpainsandgains · 2 months ago

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Are local elections ever decided on local issues?

As we approach the May local elections - in my area County Council elections in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire - it's worth exploring if local council elections are ever decided by local issues? In my experience I'd argue that national issues play a much greater influence in determining how people vote. There are exceptions to this, I was first elected as a Cllr in a single by-election in the ward where I lived too. Everything we put out was about the ward and what I wanted to do here. It helped that I was a challenger in a previously strong Conservative ward and the local councillors had been largely anonymous so I had a big open goal to shoot at.

However when people come to vote on May 1st will they be thinking about the performance of the Conservative controlled County Councils in Notts and Derbys? Or will voters be motivated by wanting to send a message to Keir Starmer? Certainly if the election material is anything to go by its the latter which is dominating the discourse. Obviously its in the Conservatives interests to move the debate away from what they have done in office for the past 4 years in those councils and to raise national issues that local councils have no say about. Reform seem to be focusing their message about how they are alternative to Labour even though Labour have not run these councils for the past 4 years.

In Broxtowe a left breakaway from Labour called the Broxtowe Alliance seem to be trying to make this election about the future local government reorganisation. This seems to be having an impact on some voters as one told me recently that the vote on May 1st was a referendum on merging with the City Council. It took me a couple of minutes to debunk this myth and explain that a new council is a few years away and would be bigger than Broxtowe and Nottm City but it shows how peoples views can be effected by constant messaging even when that messaging is incorrect.

I'm not trying to claim that Labour is squeaky clean on this either, for 14 years when we had a Tory Government it was clearly a part of the election strategy in Labour areas to talk about the need for the local council to stand up against "Tory Austerity" and for national issues to creep into the local leaflets too.

Its hard to see how this could be any other way - local elections traditionally have a much smaller turnout than general elections and I often talk to residents on canvass sessions who openly say they don't and have never voted in local elections! So local Cllrs want to encourage more people to vote and often think that invoking national issues is more likely to engage voters than talk of bin collections and local parks.

So with Reform polling higher than they have before its likely they will get a large group of Cllrs elected and maybe enough to run some councils. It will be fascinating, although probably quite scary in the areas concerned , to see what happens next. They are a relatively new party and sustained by a unhealthy media interest in their leader Nigel Farage. Their policies are driven by trying to scare people about 'immigrants'. How this will translate to running a local council and dealing with adult and children's services, tackling the housing crisis and preserving local services like Libraries will be a real test of if they are a one trick pony or a serious new political force. A small turnout in these elections could well benefit them as their voters are quite committed to their cause and likely to vote thinking it will shake up politics nationally and give their hero Nigel yet another boost. If a lot of them are still councillors 4 years later will be another story when they realise the limitations of being a local Cllr and they have to explain that the bins have not been collected because of staffing shortages and not because of a bloke on a boat.

So I hope that when voters go into the polling booths, or fill in their postal vote, they look at what they are electing people to, is this person going to be accountable locally, will they stand up for residents, have they got ideas about what the council can and should do or are they in it for themselves? We have another 4 years of this Labour government, having key councils in Labour control too should make the process of local government work more smoothly and be less of a screaming match from people who just want to chuck rocks at central government.

For our part as Labour Cllrs we need to be vocal too - constructive but vocal. We need to ensure that our government gives councils the resources we need. We have a window for the next 4 years to change local councils for the better - lets not throw it away by having them run by a Farage fan club.

Lastly a plea - average turnout for local elections tends to be somewhere between 20-35% whereas the general election is 65 - 75%. People do get concerned about a variety of local issues, eg parking, council tax rises, library closures, bin collections etc - but unfortunately a majority don’t care enough to think their vote will help deal with their concerns. It’s incumbent on all of us elected Cllrs to persuade residents that they can make a difference. Low turnouts are bad for local democracy- let’s all resolve that this has to change.

#councils #labour #reform #localelections #vote

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labourpainsandgains · 3 months ago

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How can you still be a Labour Party member?

This is a question I get asked a lot by friends who I have known for many years and worked with in the trade union movement and other campaigns. I ask myself this question about once a week. I've drafted a resignation letter more than once and not sent it. Why?

I joined the Labour Party in 1982 aged 20. I'd started work 2 years previously and almost immediately got involved in my trade union - CPSA as it was known at the time in the civil service. We were 3 years into the Thatcher government and I despised it and wanted her gone. I looked around at the options and whilst the Socialist Workers Party put up good posters and seemed to have some passion I felt they were talking to themselves a bit. The Labour Party was a mass party and most (not all) trade unions were linked to it. Tony Benn used to articulate ideas that resonated with me and it seemed the logical place for my energies. Immediately I joined I found plenty of people who shared my views and it seemed to be the place to be. I was young and naive and believed Labour could win the 83 general election - how wrong I was!

The defining political part of my life was the 84/85 miners strike. In Notts it was particularly sharp due to the majority of Notts miners continuing to work but the courage and determination of the Notts striking miners inspired me to keep fighting for what I believed in even if the odds against you seem daunting. The battle to get the Labour Party to fully back the striking miners again made me more determined to remain a party member despite some of my friends thinking that Kinnocks lack of full support was the straw to leave the party and just concentrate on trade union issues.

During that period of long Tory rule I continued to be active in the Labour Party determined that one day we would have a Labour Government and the worse excesses of the Tories would be gone. So the 97 victory was a day of joy for millions of us, a hope for a better future. I was a new parent and it seemed like a fresh start.

The hope didn't last long!

Obviously many things changed for the better but the signs were there early on that Blair wanted middle England to be comfortable with 'new' Labour and if that meant cutting single parent benefits then so be it. The next crisis for many however was the 2003 Gulf War and Blairs determination to back Bush in the illegal war. Again thousands of Labour members choose that time to resign their membership and I obviously understood that, many of my friends left at that time. Again I chose to stay believing that some socialists needed to keep up the flag of opposition and put the alternative viewpoint. I marched against the war & backed Alan Simpson and Graham Allen the local MPs who were anti war too.

However partly due to some despondency and now being a parent to 2 young boys my activity dropped to the status of a member in name only.

I occasionally got active again around election times and when Blair stood down, playing a small part in trying to get John McDonnell on the ballot paper to face Gordon Brown in the election to replace Blair but the Brown juggernaut was so strong that John failed to get enough nominations to stand. At that point I retreated again to the status of paper membership concentrating on other issues, work, family, football.

The election of Cameron woke a lot of people up and I started to see friends who had previously left the party re-join. There was a buzz again about making the labour party a place for debate and opposition to the Tories. I became a Councillor - (partly by accident to be honest but that can be a subject of a separate blog) in 2013 for the area where I live and at that point my relationship with the labour party changed again. The whole Corbyn period is worthy of a separate blog as this one is far too long anyway so will leave that period for now.

Suddenly as a Cllr you are far more in the spotlight that you are as a rank and file member. If you make statements in public, especially as social media by that time had taken off, someone will notice and it will end up being quoted back at you or put in a newspaper article. The responsibilities of being an elected official are made very clear to you and you are expected to always 'vote with the party line' at meetings. This is the biggest drawback of being a Cllr and the one that has tested me the most. The rules of 'breaking the labour whip' are much sharper for Cllrs than for MPs but that said Starmer is now starting to adopt the same approach with rebel MPs too. Basically the system is we debate our policies for the council within the labour group and once a position is agreed then we are all expected to vote that way in the public council meetings. This causes real issues when you are on the losing side of a sharp argument on issues that matter to you a lot. Its been even worse during the past 10 years when council budgets were cut massively by central government meaning councils then had to cut vital services in order to balance the budget. That leaves Cllrs voting for a 'labour budget' which many, if not all of us, didn't really agree with. It's at these times when for some they just can't stomach it any longer and they vote against it and end up getting suspended from the party and more often than not end up leaving and joining another party or staying as an independent Cllr.

This is the stage I've been at many times both with my own conscience and in response to lobbying from campaigners. It's even sharper again now that we have a Labour Government as there becomes national issues that Labour is perusing that I fundamentally disagree with, cuts to disability benefits, winter fuel allowance, overseas aid etc are all issues that I strongly oppose alongside the lack of support for the Palestinians in Gaza and the approach to Trump. In the last couple of months we have seen a rash of new resignations from the Labour Party - many of these from people who have been members for as long as me. These are not the 'Corbyn joiners' - they left a long time ago. I won't condemn them for leaving, I've been too close to doing it myself. At the end of the day life is short and you make your own decisions on what you want to spend your time and efforts on. For some the continuing battles internally inside the Labour Party are a distraction they don't need anymore. This is even more focussed when they believe with some justification that the scope for debate and change has been shut down by an increasingly authoritarian regime which successfully elected Keir Starmer as leader on a completely different policy platform to the one he's now carrying out. They feel liberated now to say exactly what they feel and I understand that.

So why haven't I left then? This isn't about personal advancement - my failed attempts at leadership are behind me, a future blog will look at how all that works, for me its about what I'm still trying to achieve as a Cllr and if staying inside the tent will help me do that.

I was elected as a Labour candidate, which in Wollaton West in 2013 was a big thing, it made the national papers! I'm accountable to my party members who have selected me over the years. The current consensus of the local activists is to hang in there. This may be because around half our membership have left the party in the past 5 years so the voices wanting me to do the same have voted themselves with their feet.

To resign and stay a Cllr as an independent you could argue is you still trying to get things done but are you not then obliged to call a by-election and seek a mandate as an independent? Would anyone in Wollaton thank me for doing that, are the costs of it worth it? So if you are going to leave the labour whip are you not better doing it close to an election and then either not seek re-election or stand under a different banner?

Under the current electoral system for councils and parliament its hard to make any traction as an independent or a small party. I personally have supported PR for elections for years but no government has ever wanted it presumably because once you have hauled yourself into government you don't really want to give it up!

So the harsh realities of real politics is that if you want to achieve any progress (from a progressive left of centre point of view) people gravitate to Labour. That doesn't mean that change can't happen outside of party politics - of course it does and I support that. I would never ever say 'leave it to the politicians to sort it out'. Change and pressure comes from below but I'm not an anarchist and think governments (and councils) do make a difference and because of that I've spent my life trying to make progressive change through the vehicle open to me. So I remain for now inside the tent trying to get things done in Wollaton and the city as a whole whilst supporting others to keep shouting and campaigning for change.

I spent my first 11 years as a Cllr under a Tory government. I was crying out for a government who would fund councils properly. The jury is still out on if this new government will properly do this. Early signs are hopefully but still massively inadequate. There needs to be a radical change to structures too and that's now underway as I covered in the last blog. Again I believe I am better placed to argue for what is needed staying inside the tent.

So there it is, my over long and rambling analysis of why I'm still here as a Labour Cllr and as a result of this working with other like minded Cllrs to try to get the best deals. I will continue to speak out on all issues I feel strongly about and if the party decides they can't live with the criticism so be it.

Cllr Steve Battlemuch

Obviously in a personal capacity!

#labour #Cllr #Councillor

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labourpainsandgains · 4 months ago

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Yes council structures do need to change

We are entering a period of renewed discussion on the future of local councils. Most people will switch off from this believing it doesn't effect them. To some extent they are right - when all the bluff and bluster is over, decisions made and changes implemented - probably 3 years away in my area of Nottingham/Notts - bins will still be emptied, roads will still need potholes filling and social care costs will still dominate council budgets.

However change is needed, I strongly believe it is long overdue, it will save money for council tax payers in the medium to long term and will make dealing with 'the council' easier and less confusing for many residents.

At the heart of the issue is the current 2 tier system we see in many places, I'll use Notts as an example but plenty of other areas have this too and are facing the same push for change which is being led from central government.

In Notts we have 9 councils (for the purposes of this article I'm ignoring the parish councils that exist as they will remain largely unchanged and they don't deal with the big complex service areas which cost the bulk of money that councils spend).

7 of these 9 are District Councils - Ashfield, Broxtowe, Rushcliffe, Newark, Gedling, Mansfield and Bassetlaw. These 7 are linked to the county council in a 2 tier system which means an enormous amount of overlap and confusion for residents about which of their councils deals with what issues. The 9th council is Nottingham City which is a unitary authority meaning that we deal with all services for the residents inside the city.

The plan from government is for the 2 tier system to be replaced by unitary authorities, to try to make the new councils more equal in population size and ensure the new ones are financially viable. In Notts this means in reality 2 councils replacing the 9 that currently exist. This will mean some significant streamlining of posts at a senior level and most people will welcome this. In the current 2 tier areas it will remove the 'who does what' questions and make contacting the council easier and more efficient. It will also reduce massively the amount of 'borders' we have which again often lead to inefficiencies. In my ward we share roads with Broxtowe in a number of places where their bin lorries do part of the street and ours do the others, where road repairs can stop half way down a street, where you can take rubbish to 'our' recycling plant but not one in Broxtowe which might be closer to where you live! These inefficiencies can be ironed out largely by a decent reorganisation.

The problem with all reorganisations is which areas form the new council and will elected councillors get on board even if it means a reduced number of Cllrs in the new structure.

In Notts the narrative from some is what happens with the city council, do the districts closest to the city want to be part of a new bigger council with us. This is the question for Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe. There is a geographical logic to all those 3 and the city forming a new South Notts council. We share a common area, a river, a joint bus network led by the city council owned & award winning Nottingham City Transport, the Tram covers Broxtowe and the City, almost all the residents would say Nottingham when asked where you live by a stranger, those outer areas commute into the city for work and pleasure, using the cultural attractions build by the city over the years - theatres, the arena, Goose Fair, regular events in the Market Square, Wollaton Park etc - don't allow people to tell you the city has nothing to offer - we are one of the 10 core cities albeit with the smallest boundaries.

This set of 4 councils coming together makes the most sense to me but I'm told the other 4 (Mansfield, Ashfield, Newark and Bassetlaw) feel they would not be viable economically so they are pushing for one of the other districts to make it a 5/3 split rather than 4/4. This will ultimately be for the government to decide after a summer of consultation is opened up.

Obviously political considerations are at play too - who would run these 2 new councils? Some existing Cllrs would lose their seats in the new 2 council structure than the existing 9. I urge existing Cllrs to look to what is best for the future of our area not what is best for your future. Its the next 50 years we should be concentrating on not the next 5.

This is a once in a generation chance to build a better council structure, a new government may not want to do it. We need to take this chance to get it right. The size of the existing city council has made it unviable financially for years. Tight city borders with the huge social care costs have made it difficult when it was combined with 14 years of cuts to urban authorities by the previous government. The new structure will be fairer to all. We need central government to cover the costs of the reorganisation and ensure that residents see the benefit of better services and a council tax fair to all. It can be done with good will. Residents and Businesses will benefit too - if this structure had been in place now, the Nottingham Forest ground expansion would have been much simpler as it would have been dealing with one council not three! ( I had to find a way to get a Forest reference into the blog!).

Lets take this opportunity for progressive change, for simplified council structures which better reflect where we live, and I for one will be content if the result means I will no longer be a Cllr because we need less of us.

#Nottingham #councils #Notts

Cllr Steve Battlemuch (personal capacity)

Find me on Bluesky, X and Facebook.

Blog post 3 - 11/3/25

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labourpainsandgains · 4 months ago

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Why would anyone want to be an elected Cllr ?- busting a few myths.

So in my first proper Cllr blog I want to start at the beginning - what is a Cllr, do you get paid, how do you get elected, how much work do you have to do. Subsequent blogs will take on more substantive issues that I've come across over my years as a Cllr including those I flagged in my initial post around some of the funding challenges, the future structures of local government and some specific Nottingham issues that often come up when people think of Nottingham City Council! This initial blogpost will be fairly basic so apologies to readers who know all this and just want the juicy bits which I will cover in later blogs!

There are over 19,000 elected councillors in the UK in over 150 councils. In England Cllrs are elected for a 4 year term and most councils elect their Cllrs in one all out election. Some however elect Cllrs in thirds meaning that there are local elections of some kind in 3 out of 4 years in those councils. The trend however is towards all councils electing their Cllrs in one go as this tends to give some level of stability to the council and cuts down the costs of having elections every year.

In Nottingham City we have 55 elected Cllrs, the last election was in 2023. At that election Labour won 51 of the 55 with the other 4 going to independent Cllrs (but 3 of them were part of a slate of independents who stood for election with a vague common platform between them). I'll cover the differences in what is an independent Cllr who is unaligned to any group and a group of 'independents' like we see in Nottingham and Ashfield and elsewhere in a future blog post. Spoiler alert - they are not really independent if they are in a group!

So the basics - yes you get an allowance as a Cllr, this varies from Council to Council depending on the type of council it is but in Nottingham City its around £14,800 for a backbench Cllr. If you are a Chair of a key committee or an executive Cllr you get an additional allowance on top. These allowances are all public on the councils website, increases are not set by Cllrs, and obviously they are subject to tax & NI. Since 2015 Cllrs have not been part of the local government pension scheme which means for those Cllrs for whom their duties constitute their full time job, they have no pension provision.

The dilemma for many Cllrs is how to combine their Cllr role with the need to have a wage high enough to pay their bills, so in my experience most backbench Cllrs have another part time or full time job . This gets problematical if their employer isn't flexible with time off for meetings, most of which happen during the day. This in turn leads to most people of working age, especially those with school age children, thinking that being a Cllr isn't for them. Whilst the age range of Cllrs has come down a bit over the time I've been a Cllr, its still a role that sees mainly people over 45 taking it up. In Nottingham we have bucked that trend in recent years with some great younger Cllrs however we also lose some of them fairly quickly too when the duties of the job become clearer and for some the pace of change is too slow!

For me I was aged 51 when first elected, and was an accidental Cllr as I stood for Labour in a by-election in an area which had elected Conservative Cllrs for many years before. So I stood initially not expecting to win but here I am 12 years later.

So can anyone stand? Largely yes - the council advertises publicly when the elections are and you download or pick up a form and fill a few details in and you are on the ballot paper. Our rules state you should live or work in the city and Nottingham Labour candidates only can stand if they live in the city. However there is no rule that states you need to live in the ward you are standing in. Some people like to stand where they live - me for one - as in theory you will know more about your local streets, schools, community centres etc if you live there. Others feel more attached to different wards maybe because they used to live there or they work near there and maybe also think they don't want their immediate neighbours knocking on their door about something! That said in 12 years that has only happened to me once! I do however get some good feedback and casework from my street whats app group!

The vast majority of Cllrs are elected on a 'party' ticket eg Labour/Tory/Lib Dems/Reform/Greens etc - its not rocket science to understand that putting out election leaflets and knocking on doors to canvass them is much easier if you are in a collective group of broadly like minded people. That is why standing as a genuine independent on your own is so tough unless you have deep pockets to pay for all the leaflets and a lot of friends and family to help you deliver them! The recent growth of independents in councils is however mainly where groups of people leave the political group they were in and form an independent group - we've seen this in Ashfield who were previously Lib Dems and Broxtowe who were previously Labour.

So again one of the main barriers to becoming a Cllr is deciding to be a member of a political party in the first place. Some become council candidates after many years of party membership, some in reality join a party because they want to be a Cllr! The LP has a rule which means you need to be a party member for a year before you can stand but this has been waived in exceptional circumstances. The Labour Party also has rules about standing at least 50% women in council seats, other parties rules are less clear about this and in some areas of the country councils can certainly look very male (and white too).

Finally as this first blog is probably too long already I'll cover a bit about what a backbench Cllr does. Obviously this varies enormously but the basics include attending the main full council meetings - we have between 6-8 a year normally held on a Monday afternoon for approx 4 hours starting at 2pm. Then there are a wide range of committees and most Cllrs sit on at least 3 or 4 of them ranging from planning to scrutiny to audit and many more. Again in Nottingham most of these are during the day. Some are online but most in person but the lobby for more online meetings is growing as it worked during the covid lockdown. If you are in the party that runs the council there are many more meetings - our labour group meets as a minimum twice a month, more during budget times, in the evenings to determine policy and hold the executive Cllrs to account - I'll cover what executive Cllrs do in a future blog.

On top of these routine meetings the most important role is that of representing your residents by dealing with casework and attending community networks. These issues come to you in many ways - by email, phone, at face to face surgeries, at community meetings and many more. Being diligent with casework is the hallmark of a good Cllr in my opinion. It can unblock things and get things done for residents who deserve to be heard. You can't win them all but when you do achieve a result it makes all the other stuff seem worthwhile. Attending & supporting community networks is not only rightly expected but vital to your role as a local champion.

The council does run extensive training and induction sessions for new Cllrs on all aspects of being a Cllr as it can be a sharp learning curve for a lot of people.

The most difficult thing is collective responsibility for decisions, this particular applies if you are a Cllr elected as part of a political group. Certainly in Labour this means accepting collective responsibility for decisions, voting for them at council meetings and can mean being disciplined for not accepting this. This area will be the subject of a separate blog because it’s complex & often difficult for new Cllrs to accept (and some experienced Cllrs too 🧐).

So that's enough for now - future ones will delve into a single topic per blog as I explore some of the key issues I've dealt with and the issues that people raise with me when they know I'm a Cllr!

As always feedback is welcome and you can find me on Bluesky, X and Facebook if you want to message me. My council email is widely available for council related questions too.

Steve Battlemuch

Wollaton West Labour Cllr.

#labour #cllr #councillor #nottingham

Post number 2 - 6/3/25.

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labourpainsandgains · 4 months ago

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This is the start of an occasional blog on life as a backbench Labour city councillor, trying to get the small things right locally whilst pushing for progressive change on the bigger stuff. In other words getting potholes filled whilst lobbying for Broad Marsh to be pulled down!

I’m now in my 12th year as a cllr, all bar one of them as a backbencher. I’ve stood twice for leader losing to David Mellen in 2019 & being blocked as a candidate by the national party in 2024 (along with others too) as they deemed only one Cllr could be leader and no internal election would be held.

I’ve been a party member continuously since 1982 - joining aged 20 inspired by Tony Benn and wanting to change the world & thinking I’d start the process in the party that most trade unions and working people supported. It’s been quite a rollercoaster at times.

Over the next few blogs - hoping to try for weekly - I’m going to explore the following

- What does a backbench Cllr do day to day & how do you become one?

- Will council finances improve now we have a Labour Government?

- Why restructuring Local Govt ( eg having less councils) is vital & will it happen?

- Why has Nottingham City made so many cuts and was it avoidable?

- What really went wrong with Robin Hood Energy & in hindsight could it have ever been successful?

I hope these blogs will shed some light on subjects that don’t get talked about much as far too often local reporting of councils is clickbait headlines in the Post. There are a couple of decent local journalists who do their best to cover local government but I want this blog to give some insights from my experience on the inside & try to demystify the structures that most residents don’t understand and often don’t want to understand! The majority of people don’t vote in local elections- I’d love that to change and if my blog gets one more person to vote in the future then it’s a start!

Finally I’m open to answering questions on any of these subjects (if anyone reads them!) & people can interact with me via Bluesky, X (still in it for now) and Facebook.

Thanks for reading … the first proper blog will be out later this week.

Steve Battlemuch

Labour Cllr for Wollaton West

Nottm City Council.

Obviously in a personal capacity!

Post One - 4/3/25.

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