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How to be a local government representative

By Robert Shaw

Porirua City Councillor

What is the councillor’s role?  How should councillors behave? What are their responsibilities?

Any community that is genuinely alive and flourishing will have a vibrant local government. The vibrancy will be seen in the clash of ideas. How is this to be managed to achieve the community’s aspirations? Here, I set out my answer to an important question: what is the role of an ordinary councillor?

I want to set out some standards of behaviour against which we can judge elected representatives. What standards you adopt will depend very much on what you think about democracy and the place of local government national governance system. I try to make clear my assumptions without necessarily justifying them.

Who is at the council table?

The best place to start is to look around a council chamber. Those assembled around a council table need to recognise their distinct roles and properly play their parts. If any one group is weak, they limit the performance of the whole. The media, the public in the gallery, and members of the public who make submissions, also have important roles.

There are 5 different roles around the council table:

1.    Council chairpersons or mayors.

2.    Committee chairpersons.

3.    Ordinary councillors.

4.    The chief executive officer.

5.    Council officers.

Sometimes those involved are unclear about their distinctive responsibilities. Essentially, those numbered 1, 2, 4 and 5 above speak at all times for the council, and they should be very cautious if they criticise council in public. The present article is only about role 3 above.

Ordinary councillors may have an important role in the formation of policy and their vote at the council table always counts. A seat at a council table is a valuable thing because it is one vote.

Ordinary councillors can do nothing alone. In this, their position contrasts with the other 4 roles that have available to them the ability to commit resources. To achieve policy advances, basic grade councillors must work through others. You will notice that only ordinary councillors have the role of council critic, because everyone else holds responsibility for the organisation. The ordinary councillor has no greater powers than a member of the public, although in practice they should have easier access to information.

I have set out councillors’ responsibilities as follows, which is a rough priority order:

1.    Duties to the electorate.

2.    Duties to the constitution.

3.    Duties to other elected people.

4.    Duties to your chief executive and other officers.

All elected members swear to “faithfully and impartially according to my skill and judgement execute or perform” in the best interest of their whole region, city or district. After the election campaign, councillors are compelled to take a wider perspective and leave behind their personal electoral district.

Duties to the electorate

The councillor’s first responsibility is to the electorate. This accountability is at the heart of our democracy. Councillors hold the following duties towards residents and ratepayers:

1.    To help achieve the best decisions possible at the council table.

2.    To inform people issues that affect them.

3.    To seek, on each issue, an intelligent consensus in the community.

4.    To be an advocate for what the community wants to achieve.

5.    To be conscious that the council spends other people’s money, and hence be frugal.

6.    To avoid being captured by an interest group. Available interest groups include developers, commercial groups, ideological groups, political parties, ethnic groups, churches, and morals groups, and residents’ associations.

7.    To vote according to what you believe to be in the interests of the whole region, district or city (which is the positive way of stating 6 above).

8.    To make the council representatives accountable in public.

9.    To work to help your council succeed.

This list of duties assumes the electorate is sane. If the community develops views that are idiosyncratic, morally unacceptable or contrary to their long-term interests, then the councillor has a moral duty to stand against the community consensus. This is most likely to happen in New Zealand in relation to substantial commercial initiatives, racism, and other prejudices.

Leadership, in the sense of “producing vision”, is adequately dealt with in 2, 3 and 9 above. A council has no business imposing itself on the community. Significant new ideas must gain traction in the community before councillors at the council table advance them to fruition. Councillors who have ideas can use their position as a councillor to gain publicity for their ideas.

Actions that support the duties to the electorate

In order to advance these duties to the electorate, councillors should:

1.    Insist on meetings being in public wherever possible.

2.    Speak their mind, in public, at council meetings.

3.    Vote carefully.

4.    Communicate with the public by writing letters to newspapers and issuing media statements.

5.    Frankly, answer the questions of reporters.

6.    Listen to what people say and try to understand different points-of-view.

7.    Forward questions from the public to the chief executive, and ask for a copy of the reply.

8.    Participate as a councillor in residents’ association, and special interest group, meetings.

9.    Make the council’s spokespersons accountable in public.

10.                       Rationally question and test the advice of officers.

11.                       Support tight financial controls.

12.                       Do not spend the ratepayers’ money on yourself (overseas trips, conferences outside of your responsibilities).

13.                       Reject donations from developers and commercial interests (bribes). Like the Jesuits, be in the world not of it.

14.                       When your council makes a decision you opposed, adjust your thinking to that reality. You now have to help your council succeed as it carries the burden of that bad decision.

Duties, and actions that support duties, to the constitution

You should not be in politics unless you love democracy more than you love power. There are three areas of duty to the constitution. Duties towards:

1.    Participatory democracy.

2.    The local government sector.

3.    The rule of law, including due process.

These actions support the councillor’s duties to the constitution:

1.    Support the right of individuals to participate in council decision-making as, and when, they see fit (as far as practicable).

2.    Support for the freedom of information.

3.    Explain the local government sector to people.

4.    Support other councils as they struggle.

5.    Support Local Government New Zealand.

6.    Support the development of professional local government officers.

7.    Insist on proper procedures being followed.

8.    Know, and insist on the use of, the standing orders.

9.    Insist that there is strict adherence to the democratic decisions of council.

Duties to other elected people

Why does a councillor have duties towards other elected people? It is not because they are human beings, nor is it because they have status as elected people.

It is because every councillor has a responsibility towards the council – they all have to make your council succeed (remember the oath). To do that councillors must work to ensure that every decision of council is sound. Hence, the duties towards other elected people are those things that take the council towards sound, rational decision-making. They are the rules of debate and good manners.

There are two sets of duties that councillors have towards elected people:

1.    Those that relate to all elected colleagues generally, and

2.    Those that relate specifically to elected people who represent the organisation.

First, duties towards other councillors in general, which contribute to sound decision-making:

1.    Support the provision of facts and rationality.

2.    Avoid from personality politics.

3.    Try to see the business of council in perspective.

4.    Help create a safe environment in which all councillors can speak (the prime responsibility belongs to the chairperson).

Second, the duties councillors have towards those who must represent the council in public (mayor and chairpersons), which are about assisting the council itself to succeed:

1.    Assist them to provide factual information to the public.

2.    Assist them to convey to the public the reasons why the council made a particular decision (ordinary councillors are free to put their alternative position, but should distinguish it from the council’s position).

3.    Do not blame mayors and chairpersons personally for majority decisions (but still make them publicly accountable for the councils decisions).

4.    Assist chairpersons, so long as their intention is to maximise participation and work towards rational decision-making.

Actions that support duties to elected people

In practice, the duties towards other elected people produce the following operating principles:

1.    Communicate clearly.

2.    Say things with a smile, diplomacy and humour.

3.    Acknowledge positive contributions to the debate (factual, rational things) even if you disagree with the speaker.

4.    Be patient. You must quietly listen to a lot of repetitious nonsense as every councillor tries to discover his or her own thoughts - this is democracy.

5.    Do not make personal remarks at the council table. Do not refer to a councillor’s family situation, business, or their place of residence, relations, friends, race, gender or personal circumstances.

6.    Do not refer to councillor’s non-attendance at meetings. It is none of your business (unless they are a chairperson).

7.    Do not refer to how a councillor voted unless there was a division or their vote was recorded.

8.    Debate debating points, not people’s views - depersonalise debates. Do not attribute motives to councillors.

9.    Be tolerant. Some councillors work an 8-hour day and then head into a 5-hour meeting. They are bound to be a bit tense, and tension relief is a good thing. If they are trying to participate, help those who make fools of themselves.

10.                       Learn how to cobble together a majority at the council table to support your views.

11.                       Do not talk politics, or issues, in the dining room or the councillors’ lounge. Allow people their personal space.

12.                       Do not invite officers into the councillors’ lounge unless you check that other councillors present do not object.

13.                       In debates and in public, do not refer to anything that was said in a workshop by anyone.

14.                       Treat the council chamber with appropriate reverence. If councillors swear and perform, how can we expect the community to respect local government?

Duties, and actions that support the duties, to all officers

There are duties that councillors hold towards all officers, and there are some special duties that relate just to the chief executive.

The duties to officers derive from the need to ensure there is sound decision-making, and from council’s employment of professional people.

The actions that support councillors’ duties towards officers are:

1.    Criticise and test officers’ advice in a rational way.

2.    Acknowledge clearly written and helpful advice.

3.    Appreciate that the advice given will not always suit your purposes, and take it as a positive contribution. Do not shoot the messenger.

4.    Do not encourage the officers to enter the debate. Ask for facts not opinions.

5.    Do not refer to officers in a personal way.

6.    Do not establish personal relationships with officer – be slightly formal.

7.     Do not lend support to members of the public who criticise officers personally.

8.    Negotiate your requests for information to minimise the workload and help people meet deadlines.

9.    Always work through the chief executive unless it has been established that the councillor will work directly to a particular officer on a particular matter. (The chief executive must coordinate the democratic process.)

Duties to the chief executive

The size of the council has an impact on the practices of chief executives, and sometimes more than one officer takes on the “chief executive” role. The chief executive’s most vital role is to support the practice of democracy. Without this the statutory roles of advisor and manager of council operations make little sense. Accordingly, the chief executive will try to assist all councillors to advance their individual agendas and participate.

The councillor, with regard to the chief executive, should:

1.    Work to build a relationship of trust. What passes between a councillor and the chief executive should be confidential.

2.    Seek assistance to develop ideas that will be debated at the council table and in the media. This prepares the chief executive and will enable the council to refine ideas.

3.    Bring any serious personal criticisms of officers directly to the chief executive (raise minor matters directly with the officer).

Finally

The model here is based on the principles of participatory democracy, and an idealised view of what happens in many councils. No doubt every councillor in the country will have a different opinion on the things I have set our here. That is local government! I formed my view having been on two councils for over a decade (the Porirua City Council and the Wellington Regional Council), and various contrasting governance boards such as those of a polytechnic, a school, companies, incorporated societies, an observatory and a licensing trust.