What do your local councillors do?
| Published: 7th April 2008 21:49 |
Birmingham City Council is a massive organisation and what it does affects the lives of local people in many ways.
Just to give you an idea of its influence: the city council runs schools (sort of), empties the bins, builds, cleans and maintains roads, looks after parks (and organises events), takes care of social services and housing, promotes the city worldwide and encourages economic development, supports youth work and community projects - the list goes on.
The policy decisions for all this are made by local councillors elected by local people. That is why the vote is important. Each ward is represented by three councillors and one of those posts is up for grabs this time.
At the top of the tree there is a city council leader (currently Conservative Mike Whitby) and a Cabinet. Each Cabinet member has personal responsibility for a particular subject area.
Cabinet positions are allocated by the ruling political group and in Birmingham's case that is the coalition made up of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, as no single party has overall control.
Because only a third of the councillors face re-election at any one time, two thirds are guaranteed to hold their seat. That means a change of power is unlikely this time around. At the moment the Conservatives have only one seat more than Labour - but a coalition (or Progressive Partnership as they call it) with the Lib Dems has kept them in control.
Currently the seats on the city council are divided up as follows..
- 43 Conservative
- 42 Labour
- 32 Liberal Democrat
- 2 Respect
- 1 Independent
The Cabinet meets fortnightly and makes most of the key decisions. However its work is overseen by a number of scrutiny committees and the full city council, which meets every month (apart from a summer break). The full city council must approve the annual budget.
So even if they are not Cabinet members, your local councillor can influence decision-making in a number of ways. They may be members of a scrutiny committee or they could be influential members within their own party grouping and be able to sway opinion that way. They are also members of the ward and constituency committees, which have some powers over very local decisions and some money to spend on local schemes.
