Imagine this: a network that is responsible for a quarter of all public spending; represents 31 million people across England and Wales; and directly contributes over £2m a year in funding to the Labour party – making it the second biggest donor after Unite – and yet it cannot get a seat at the top table.

This is the reality for local government in the Labour party. What’s more, ordinary councillors are working tirelessly, often late into the evening, doing their best to make lives better for the people they represent, yet are sometimes vilified from our own side for cuts imposed by a Tory government.

Now the party’s democracy review is reported to be considering removing the rights of democratically elected Labour councillors to elect and hold local council leaders to account. While we need a debate about how to improve local accountability, this idea is unworkable. It risks legal challenges to local authority constitutions, which state that councillors should choose the council leader. It risks endless infighting as groups within the party are pitted against each other. It risks turning every council decision into a local membership referendum. And it could end up with the party spending millions organising ballots of members every year, which would be better spent competing with the Tories’ election war chest.

Local government has long been the Cinderella of Labour politics. The Labour party’s democracy review should be focused on ending this anomaly. It should recognise the positive contribution that we can make at every level of the party – which is why the Local Government Association Labour Group is calling for additional seats for councillors on the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), on its regional boards and its National Policy Forum.

Labour councillors all want the same thing: empowered communities that give chances to all, irrespective of background

Most people, quite understandably, think that council tax funds their local services, despite it only making up a quarter of most councils’ funding. The reality is that after government removed nearly all financial support for local authorities, councillors are faced with the kind of moral and legal constraints that Jeremy Corbyn himself acknowledged in 2015 when he wrote to Labour group leaders urging them not to set illegal budgets because of the risk of it paving the way for “Tory ministers deciding council spending priorities”. So the democracy review should commit Labour to a programme of education that would assist members and the wider public to understand what councillors are responsible for, the legal framework within which they must act, and how they can effectively scrutinise their decisions.

We also need to consider how we select more female, BAME, disabled, LGBT and working-class councillors. This starts with reforming working conditions for elected councillors. Currently councillors have no rights to parental or maternity leave, no holidays, no pensions and no sick pay. If we argue for Uber drivers to get these rights, why aren’t we making the same case for councillors?

That’s why it is vital that the party’s NEC backs Labour councillors and acknowledges their role as the front line in the fight against austerity. Our councillors need to be able to come together to face up to the realities of the sometimes complex and difficult decisions they have to make, secure in the knowledge that they will be backed to the hilt by the party for the challenging job they do.

At the same time, local accountability could be strengthened with a beefed up “joint local government committee” in every area that brings together members, councillors and trade unions to debate policies, and focuses on increasing the number of people willing to put themselves forward as candidates.

Labour councillors all want the same thing: empowered communities that give opportunities to everyone, irrespective of background. Our 2017 manifesto had many inspiring ideas in it – by working together, Labour councils have the chance to deliver many of these policies even without a Labour government. Engaging in a new round of internal battles will only jeopardise that.

• Nick Forbes is leader of the Local Government Association’s Labour group, and of Newcastle city council