Pitiful progress: women councillors in Wales after the 2017 local elections

By Diana Stirbu, Jac Larner and Laura McAllister

“Male, pale and stale” is a familiar insult levelled at politicians in many places. It certainly fits the profile of our local councillors in Wales. Asked to imagine a local councillor, we’d place a hefty bet that it will usually be a picture of a white, retired man, aged 65 plus.

Now that’s not entirely fair but, like all stereotypes, there is some important truth in it. The absence of any real diversity-of gender, age and ethnicity-in Welsh local government is a stubborn and persistent problem. For a long time, nobody seems to care much but there have been two recent and pretty expansive investigations into the problem: a 2008 report entitled “Are you being Served?’, from the now Future Generations Commissioner and then Cardiff Labour councillor, Sophie Howe. Then another from a Welsh Government-appointed Expert Group on Local Government Diversity (chaired by one of us) that reported in 2014. Both enquiries concluded that real structural and cultural change was needed if this democratic deficit was to be addressed. Given, after the recent local elections, only 28% of councillors are female, can we conclude that no-one is really taking this seriously?

There is a range of diversity deficits of course but the missing women is probably the most worrying aspect of this lack of diversity given the numbers game. It shouldn’t need saying but women are not a minority, yet the 20% bar was only broken in 2004 elections, and women have comprised just a quarter of our elected councillors only since 2012, when 26% of all elected councillors were women. This meant the gender balance of Welsh councillors was, only ‘better” than Northern Ireland.

The low number of women candidates contesting the elections in May 2017- only 29.8%, and the chronically high number of wards where no women candidates were fielded in the first place (33%) hardly augured well for progress in the first place and unsurprisingly, the 2017 election results gave us nothing to cheer about: a total of 28.2% of the total number of councillors elected on May 4th are women.

This means that progress of merely 6% has been made in 13 years and across four electoral terms. It is difficult to know whether to laugh or cry when five of our 22 councils have under 15% women councillors — Ynys Mon (10%), Blaenau Gwent (12%), Ceredigion (12%), Merthyr Tydfil (12%), and Pembrokeshire (13%). This is worse that in 2012, when only three councils reached this low point. For those of a glass half-full disposition, at least eleven councils have broken through the 30% mark, with Swansea and Rhondda Cynon Taf showing progress worthy of some praise at least. But even that is hardly worthy of cracking open the champagne for, given this is far from balanced in such a crucial tier of local democracy.

So, why are the numbers still so pitifully low and why has progress been so limited?

Let’s look at what has been done to date in terms of addressing the lack of gender diversity in our councils. The Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011 forced councils to conduct a standardised survey of councillors and unsuccessful candidates in elections, with the objective of monitoring overall diversity. Alongside this, the introduction of remote attendance, mandating annual reporting on diversity, ensuring training and development of councillors and an Access to Elected Office Fund, were all meant to create conditions for council office being a more attractive prospect for a broader range of people.

In 2012, there was a slight increase in the number of women elected- from 22% in 2008 to 26%. Yet, a quick scan over the first candidate survey in 2012, and the overall profile of that Welsh councillor emerges — He is male, white, 60+ years of age, of Christian faith, who had served as councillor in the past. This overall profile prompted the appointment of an Expert Group on Diversity in Local Government with a remit of reviewing the results of the 2012 and “making recommendations on improving diversity in local government at the 2017 local elections”. Amongst these, when the Panel reported in 2014, several cultural and structural changes were suggested, including improving the quality of monitoring diversity itself -afterall, what gets measured gets done- widening participation interventions such as shadowing and mentoring for prospective candidates, and an enhanced role for the political parties in all of this.

So, given a detailed action plan which was signed up to by everyone concerned in promoting diversity, are we to assume that the report recommendations were largely ignored?

Of course, nothing is that simple. But we can attempt some very straightforward general explanations, and some slightly more subtle explanations of why the number of women councillors remains so low. First, political parties act as the principal gatekeepers to political recruitment. Without legal or statutory quotas, political parties have full control of the candidate selection process. Yet, parties differ in the way in which they engage in gender equality rhetoric and promotion, and in how much autonomy local parties have in controlling the process. For instance, Welsh Labour and Plaid have taken positive action for Assembly election candidates (although they have shied away from this recently). Direct positive action has not been tried at a local level.

Data for 2008 and 2012 from Fawcett Society (2017) & for 2017, from ERS Cymru (2017)

As a result, the percentage of women candidates in local elections grows at a very, very slow pace across some parties and even decreases in others. Although some parties witness upwards trends in women candidates (% terms), these increases are marginal in most cases.

Women councillors across parties (and independents) hovers stubbornly within the 20–30% bracket. Only Labour (32%) and the Lib Dems have broken the 30% mark, although, in the case of the Lib Dems, the stark variations across terms is due to the statistical effect of the low numbers overall.

Data for 2008 and 2012 from Fawcett Society (2017) & Deryn Dashboard (2017)

How then can we interpret the fact that the ‘champion’ party in Wales in terms of highest percentage of women councillors is the Lib Dems, given their diminishing overall numbers? Labour continues to improve its record of women elected at local level. Yet, what are we to make of its overall decline? This is the party that traditionally produced most women in elected office in Wales at all levels of government and the one that trailblazed greater equality in the National Assembly through its bold and controversial “twinning” policy in 1999? Meanwhile, the two parties that have made the biggest gains in this election (Conservatives at 28% and Plaid at 26%) are merely laggards in generating gender balanced council teams.

The electoral system can also take some responsibility — the FPTP system, which is still used in the Welsh local elections, is by its nature an un-representative system, generally producing lower numbers of women elected. An issue more specific to Wales is the number of uncontested (unchallenged) seats — 92, meaning 7.3% of the total number of councillors will be returned without an election. Our colleague, Professor Roger Scully called it ‘a mockery of democracy’ and, if we further consider that out of the 92 unchallenged seats this year the majority are held by men, then that’s a double whammy.

Yet, electoral systems alone neither explain nor do they solve solve the gender diversity problem.

Institutional explanations aside, political culture more generally and specifically, political culture within local councils themselves are further explanations. The On Balance Report warned of a lack of visibility of female councillors by virtue of the low numbers in most areas of Wales. Role models are often quoted as a critical factor, and they would seem significant as there is a sense, especially when local council candidates of both sexes are hard to find, that women might not see anyone “like them” in their council chamber. If 38% of women councillors across England and Wales say that they have experienced sexist comments within their own party, and 33% sexist comments from other councillors, this is not likely to attract new female candidates either. Neither is the culture of local government conducive to attracting new faces, and practical initiatives such as child care assistance are unlikely to be taken up when costs are publicised and attributed almost exclusively to women. After all, men have children too.

So, why should we care? Might we not simply resign ourselves to a tier of democracy where women are a minority? Heck no! This should make each and every one of us pretty angry. At the end of the day, despite some grand statements and plenty of government action plans, another local election has come and gone without any real progress.

The Welsh Government’s recent Local Government ‘Resilient and Renewed’ White Paper provided an opportunity to articulate some interesting and imaginative idea. Empowering local authorities to ‘trial’ STV — a more proportional electoral system known to address the representativeness issues of First Past The Post- for at least two terms is one such idea. Extending the franchise to 16–18 year olds is another. But will any of these actually address the lack of diversity of candidates?

There seems little point scratching our heads for insights into why progress on gender equality in local government feels at times slower that the rate of inflation. The political parties still seem happy to sign up to any number of report recommendations, whilst driving very little real change within their ranks.

So when Dyfed Edwards, outgoing Plaid Cymru leader of Gwynedd Council says: “we need to consider quotas to ensure more women councillors and from different ethnic backgrounds in the future”, then we respectfully suggest we challenge some of the nonsense put out there about quotas and consider implementing them as a measure to change the culture of local government.

Now, no one is being naive here. We know it is a tough gig recruiting candidates to stand in local elections and parties are mostly hollowed out organisations these days with few foot soldiers to campaign for them. And of course, being a local councillor is hardly an attractive project at a time of severe budget cuts and therefore, painful decisions about which community facility to close. But, nevertheless, the figures indicate that it men find that prospect more appealing than women. Now, we can either quietly congratulate women for having more sense!, or more appropriately, register our concern that the tough decisions about vital local public services like social care and education will continue to be made by a group of people which bears little resemblance to the majority of citizens who receive those services.