Friday Thoughts - Getting North Solihull to the ballot box.

VOTE: The turn-out in many parts of North Solihull was
less than 25 per cent in 2012.

LAST time a local election was held in Smith’s Wood, only one in five residents who were registered to vote bothered to do so.

The turn-out of 20.1 per cent two years ago may have been the worst in Solihull, but it wasn’t much better elsewhere in the borough.

The dwindling number of people who can be bothered making the trip to the polling station is often put down to a growing distrust of politicians.

There’s no doubt that the “they’re all as bad as each other” argument is a problem, but there seems to be a particular type of apathy around local elections.

That may stem from the fact that most people don’t much care what the council does.

They dismiss the metropolitan borough as just a lot of men – or mostly men – arguing in a room eight miles away.

Some people would say that when it comes down to it, the decisions that really matter aren’t made in Solihull, or even Birmingham. It’s Westminster that runs the country, the council looks after libraries…

It’s true of course that councillors aren’t all powerful. If the most important political issue to you is getting out of the EU, this isn’t going to be in the gift of Solihull Council.

But maybe you're more worried about getting out of your house in the morning. Imagine the situation; the road is chock-a-block with cars - up on the pavements and churning the verge into mud. Who you gonna call?

ROLE: Solihull Council is responsible for services
including rubbish collections

Those who think local government is rubbish are right, in part. It is rubbish (or waste collection if your prefer), as well as school crossings, street signs, your local park and the pavements you walk on. The borough council's budget for the year is something like £169m.

Suddenly one of your ward councillors seems a lot more useful. It’s the little problems and not so little ones (have you seen the size of some potholes) where the local authority comes into its own.

The clue’s in the name of course. Local. Council wards are a fraction of the size of MP’s constituencies and every one is represented by three members. This means that you’re far more likely to enlist a councillor’s help to replace a missing wheelie bin or stop the kids swigging cider at the local park.

In terms of improving participation in local elections, it's not a case of having anyone over 18 frogmarched to the ballot box and ordered to do their duty because “people died for the right”. But maybe it’s time politicians proved to people that putting a cross in the box isn’t a waste of time after all.
Councillors have their own part to play in all this. Many are hard-working and will be out and about on the patch a fair amount of the time. Others are rather more like the Olympics, in that they only come round once ever four years.
Is it any wonder some residents don’t think much of their elected representative if all they see of them is a photo - three weeks before polling day - looking stern and pointing at a lamppost. Surely there is more to politics than pointing.

OVERLOAD: Some residents get jaded by the sudden flurry
of election leaflets

Part of the way that councillors can do more is make use of new media. Start tweeting from the meetings, blog about black bin bags and, yes, get the video cameras inside the civic suite and stream committees in all their technicolour glory.

Solihull has had mixed success with new technology. Many councillors, to their credit, have grabbed social media by the scruff-of-the-neck. Chelmsley Wood’s own Chris Williams and Nick Stephens are among those to have Twitter accounts. And Coun Ken Hawkins has set a precedent for Mayors who make their movements available online.

But on the flip side of the coin, councillors were recently discouraged from reaching for their iPhone during planning meetings – in case anyone accused the members of not paying proper attention. Talks have also stalled over plans to follow Birmingham’s example and uploading videos of decision-making sessions to the council website. There is still, it seems, some suspicion of the internet age.

One final thing that political parties should try to do to encourage people around election time, is to put forward a greater variety of candidates. At present every councillor in Solihull is white and just 14 of 51 seats are held by women.

GENDER GAP: There are now three women councillors in
North Solihull, but they remain under represented

One area where there has been some success in the past few years is attracting more members in their 20s and 30s. There is nothing wrong with having older, more experienced councillors – no-one’s saying that the overview and scrutiny board needs to look like a boyband – but until a couple of years ago the youngest member of one of Solihull's political groups was 57. This would not encourage younger people – who traditionally vote less anyway – to visit the polling station.

Getting people engaged is never going to be easy. But if councillors say more and voters think about listening then just maybe the turn-out at local elections can be lifted.