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Post by greenhert on Mar 24, 2021 22:32:01 GMT
Jenrick's response to the Liverpool review includes his strong preference for all out elections and single member wards. Similar to the approach taken with Birmingham where commissioners pushed through a plan involving all-out elections and 1 or 2 member wards only, starting from 2018.
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Post by greenhert on Mar 24, 2021 22:33:46 GMT
But they are proposing single member wards in conjunction with a reduction in Council size. I don't know about the obsession with single-member wards, but a council size reduction is decades overdue. Liverpool's council size was 99 until 2004. Given the average ward size in Liverpool at present, there is no need for a council size reduction at all.
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Post by greenhert on Mar 24, 2021 22:36:29 GMT
Nevertheless, by thirds elections are no longer necessary; they are a relic from a bygone era. Most districts/boroughs are not suitable for by-thirds elections (North Herts, where I live, is not but still does elect by thirds even though the majority of its wards do not have 3 members) and by thirds elections are an unnecessary expense compared to full council elections.
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Post by evergreenadam on Mar 24, 2021 22:49:15 GMT
What are the perceived advantages of single member wards in relation to the identified problems in Liverpool? Or is it just that they could allow smaller parties to win seats and reduce the Labour majority? I personally am in favour of single member wards but in relation to this particular issue it makes squat all difference hence why the Caller report makes absolutely no mention of it I think this was just a partisan stunt Jenrick tacked on at the end to try and cost Labour some seats though as I mentioned in the Liverpool thread I actually think it will make very little difference and might in fact have the opposite effect and net Labour an extra seat or two Just checked and it is mentioned in the Caller Report: Moving to an all-out system would also remove the presumption of a uniform pattern of 3 member wards. It would enable LCC to request a single member ward pattern with a consequent significant improvement in accountability of a Councillor to their electorate.
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ilerda
Conservative
Posts: 1,042
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Post by ilerda on Mar 24, 2021 22:53:24 GMT
Whilst I’m sympathetic to the argument that moving to all out elections makes life harder for smaller parties to fight all seats and reduces democratic competition, particularly in authorities with large numbers of councillors, ultimately this something that is the “fault” of the parties themselves not being popular or well organised enough. It’s not a problem that the electoral system should be designed to resolve.
And I say that having experienced the desperate struggle to find a full slate of candidates just to cover a third of seats in Sheffield.
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Post by No Offence Alan on Mar 24, 2021 23:09:15 GMT
Whilst I’m sympathetic to the argument that moving to all out elections makes life harder for smaller parties to fight all seats and reduces democratic competition, particularly in authorities with large numbers of councillors, ultimately this something that is the “fault” of the parties themselves not being popular or well organised enough. It’s not a problem that the electoral system should be designed to resolve. And I say that having experienced the desperate struggle to find a full slate of candidates just to cover a third of seats in Sheffield. I only have experience in living in areas with all-up elections. What I have found is, with my party's literature anyway, that for 3/4 years the emphasis is on local community stuff and then in the last year goes into election mode. Which means becoming more "political" and negative on the other parties. I would imagine that in places with elections by thirds, parties must be almost constantly in "election mode" which must be a put off to the voters.
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Post by greenchristian on Mar 24, 2021 23:33:12 GMT
Whilst I’m sympathetic to the argument that moving to all out elections makes life harder for smaller parties to fight all seats and reduces democratic competition, particularly in authorities with large numbers of councillors, ultimately this something that is the “fault” of the parties themselves not being popular or well organised enough. It’s not a problem that the electoral system should be designed to resolve. And I say that having experienced the desperate struggle to find a full slate of candidates just to cover a third of seats in Sheffield. I only have experience in living in areas with all-up elections. What I have found is, with my party's literature anyway, that for 3/4 years the emphasis is on local community stuff and then in the last year goes into election mode. Which means becoming more "political" and negative on the other parties. I would imagine that in places with elections by thirds, parties must be almost constantly in "election mode" which must be a put off to the voters. Your imagination doesn't match my experience. Parties which do year round work in thirds areas seem to be in "community mode" from May through to February and in "election mode" from March through to election day. Though I don't have much experience of literature in my own local party or parties I've helped out with in my region that is negative towards other parties in or out of "election mode" (except in the "they can't win here", "they don't work year-round/you never hear from them", or "don't believe the horrible things they're saying about us" senses).
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Foggy
Non-Aligned
Inactivist
Posts: 5,551
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Post by Foggy on Mar 25, 2021 10:03:12 GMT
Jenrick isn't exactly in my good books at the moment for various reasons, but forcibly moving authorities from partial renewal to all-out elections every four years would at least prove he is capable of getting something right.
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,369
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Post by YL on Mar 25, 2021 11:31:32 GMT
I suspect that sometimes the frequent elections in thirds systems can make councils a little bit more responsive than they otherwise might have been. E.g. I suspect that the resolution of the trees issue in Sheffield owed something to it becoming clear to Labour how toxic it was for them in the 2018 and 2019 elections.
So I'm in the "need persuading" camp when it comes to switching to all up, especially with four year terms. Smaller wards (and I'd go for all single member if we were to do that, because I don't like multi-member FPTP) would have their advantages, but disadvantages too. For me "it makes parliamentary reviews easier" is true, but it's the tail wagging the dog, and a little bit more flexibility with splitting the big wards would have the same effect.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,719
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Post by J.G.Harston on Mar 25, 2021 11:59:18 GMT
I don't know about the obsession with single-member wards, but a council size reduction is decades overdue. Liverpool's council size was 99 until 2004. Given the average ward size in Liverpool at present, there is no need for a council size reduction at all. So Sheffield should go up to 120.
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Post by greenhert on Mar 25, 2021 13:17:39 GMT
Sheffield should certainly have more than 84 councillors. 100 would be better given its size.
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Post by evergreenadam on Mar 25, 2021 13:36:54 GMT
I don't know about the obsession with single-member wards, but a council size reduction is decades overdue. Liverpool's council size was 99 until 2004. Given the average ward size in Liverpool at present, there is no need for a council size reduction at all. Would be a good idea to get rid of the boundary abomination that is Knowsley MBC and transfer its constituent parts to the adjacent local authorities including expanding LCC to cover the contiguous built up area west of the M57 such as Halewood and Hutton.
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Post by Merseymike on Mar 25, 2021 13:42:29 GMT
Liverpool's council size was 99 until 2004. Given the average ward size in Liverpool at present, there is no need for a council size reduction at all. Would be a good idea to get rid of the boundary abomination that is Knowsley MBC and transfer its constituent parts to the adjacent local authorities including expanding LCC to cover the contiguous built up area west of the M57 such as Halewood and Hutton. There's also a case for getting rid of Sefton , letting Southport become a Lancashire district, giving Formby to West Lancs and shifting Liverpool northwards to include Bootle and Crosby, and Maghull. I think Knowsley alone might just add a lot of additional social strains to Liverpool which is where most of it would probably end up. You could put Kirkby into Sefton but it's already fragmented enough without having another little township which doesn't relate to the rest of the borough
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Post by evergreenadam on Mar 25, 2021 16:03:17 GMT
Would be a good idea to get rid of the boundary abomination that is Knowsley MBC and transfer its constituent parts to the adjacent local authorities including expanding LCC to cover the contiguous built up area west of the M57 such as Halewood and Hutton. There's also a case for getting rid of Sefton , letting Southport become a Lancashire district, giving Formby to West Lancs and shifting Liverpool northwards to include Bootle and Crosby, and Maghull. I think Knowsley alone might just add a lot of additional social strains to Liverpool which is where most of it would probably end up. You could put Kirkby into Sefton but it's already fragmented enough without having another little township which doesn't relate to the rest of the borough I was surprised to see that Skelmersdale and Ormskirk are not part of the Liverpool City Region when Halton is.
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Post by Merseymike on Mar 25, 2021 16:07:12 GMT
There's also a case for getting rid of Sefton , letting Southport become a Lancashire district, giving Formby to West Lancs and shifting Liverpool northwards to include Bootle and Crosby, and Maghull. I think Knowsley alone might just add a lot of additional social strains to Liverpool which is where most of it would probably end up. You could put Kirkby into Sefton but it's already fragmented enough without having another little township which doesn't relate to the rest of the borough I was surprised to see that Skelmersdale and Ormskirk are not part of the Liverpool City Region when Halton is. It was discussed at the beginning and there was certainly some interest in those places becoming part of the City region. I'm not sure on what issues the interest subsided. Halton really ought to be moved out of Cheshire - its an anomaly that its still covered by Cheshire for policing purposes, for example.
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Post by greenhert on Mar 25, 2021 16:53:55 GMT
Liverpool's council size was 99 until 2004. Given the average ward size in Liverpool at present, there is no need for a council size reduction at all. Would be a good idea to get rid of the boundary abomination that is Knowsley MBC and transfer its constituent parts to the adjacent local authorities including expanding LCC to cover the contiguous built up area west of the M57 such as Halewood and Hutton. Originally Knowsley MBC's area was going to be part of St Helens MBC. Perhaps the two authorities can merge.
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Post by evergreenadam on Mar 25, 2021 17:13:23 GMT
Would be a good idea to get rid of the boundary abomination that is Knowsley MBC and transfer its constituent parts to the adjacent local authorities including expanding LCC to cover the contiguous built up area west of the M57 such as Halewood and Hutton. Originally Knowsley MBC's area was going to be part of St Helens MBC. Perhaps the two authorities can merge. I still think some transfer to LCC would be required as it would otherwise perpetuate the existing situation of splitting the built up area just inside the M57 into two different local authorities along what appears to be a relatively arbitrary boundary line.
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sirbenjamin
IFP
True fame is reading your name written in graffiti, but without the words 'is a wanker' after it.
Posts: 4,979
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Post by sirbenjamin on Mar 25, 2021 17:21:04 GMT
Would be a good idea to get rid of the boundary abomination that is Knowsley MBC and transfer its constituent parts to the adjacent local authorities including expanding LCC to cover the contiguous built up area west of the M57 such as Halewood and Hutton. There's also a case for getting rid of Sefton , letting Southport become a Lancashire district, giving Formby to West Lancs and shifting Liverpool northwards to include Bootle and Crosby, and Maghull. I think Knowsley alone might just add a lot of additional social strains to Liverpool which is where most of it would probably end up. You could put Kirkby into Sefton but it's already fragmented enough without having another little township which doesn't relate to the rest of the borough
Sefton is one of the more stupid 1974 creations still with us and I'd happily see it go... as long they realign county boundaries in a sensible way afterwards.
A lot of people hated Humberside, but when they got rid of it, we were still left with a really fucked up 'regional' boundary between Lincolnshire, and N/NE Lincs.
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Post by Merseymike on Mar 25, 2021 17:32:12 GMT
There's also a case for getting rid of Sefton , letting Southport become a Lancashire district, giving Formby to West Lancs and shifting Liverpool northwards to include Bootle and Crosby, and Maghull. I think Knowsley alone might just add a lot of additional social strains to Liverpool which is where most of it would probably end up. You could put Kirkby into Sefton but it's already fragmented enough without having another little township which doesn't relate to the rest of the borough Sefton is one of the more stupid 1974 creations still with us and I'd happily see it go... as long they realign county boundaries in a sensible way afterwards.
A lot of people hated Humberside, but when they got rid of it, we were still left with a really fucked up 'regional' boundary between Lincolnshire, and N/NE Lincs.
Oh, as a resident of Sefton, I couldn't agree more. It takes an hour to go from one end to the other, there is hardly any real connection between Bootle and Southport in any meaningful sense and it means that just about every cross borough activity has to be repeated as its not realistic to expect people to go from one end to the other Southport's problem is that they want to be a unitary borough, but its not big enough, particularly given the age profile. The 'Southport back to Lancashire' campaign is somewhat hypocritical as they only want to be in Lancashire for postal purposes! However, there is a case for creating Southport as a county borough - with the way things are going it would end up in some sort ofLancashire unitary anyway It would be relatively easy to move Formby into West Lancs, and that would also open up the option for West Lancs to join the Liverpool City Region, which makes sense on all sorts of levels. Bootle and Crosby are Liverpool suburbs anyway.
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Post by greenhert on Mar 25, 2021 18:08:44 GMT
There's also a case for getting rid of Sefton , letting Southport become a Lancashire district, giving Formby to West Lancs and shifting Liverpool northwards to include Bootle and Crosby, and Maghull. I think Knowsley alone might just add a lot of additional social strains to Liverpool which is where most of it would probably end up. You could put Kirkby into Sefton but it's already fragmented enough without having another little township which doesn't relate to the rest of the borough
Sefton is one of the more stupid 1974 creations still with us and I'd happily see it go... as long they realign county boundaries in a sensible way afterwards.
A lot of people hated Humberside, but when they got rid of it, we were still left with a really fucked up 'regional' boundary between Lincolnshire, and N/NE Lincs.
We also still have Humberside Police, speaking of holdovers from the 1972 Local Government Act.
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