The Stoke-on-Trent Governance Commission published their report considering the options for the future governance of Stoke-on-Trent, presenting it to John Healey, the Minister for Local Government and Stoke-on-Trent City Council on 28 May 2008.
Professor Michael Clarke, vice principal of Birmingham University, the chair of the Stoke-on-Trent Governance Commission launched the Commission’s findings in the Council Chamber at the Civic Centre, Glebe Street, Stoke-on-Trent to an audience of the local politicians, the Council Manager, senior officers, public sector partners and local people and businesses who had given evidence to the Commission
He was accompanied by other Commission members: Professor Christine King, vice chancellor of Staffordshire University; Ian Dudson, chief executive of Dudson Ltd; Mohammed Tufail, former chief executive of North Staffordshire Race Equality Council and Joan Jones, a former director of the Local Government Association who was appointed to serve as an expert advisor of the Stoke-on-Trent Governance Commission members. The Rt Revd Gordon Mursell, Bishop of Stafford, was unable to attend.
“We have heard from and talked to many people in Stoke-on-Trent. There has been an overwhelming consistency in what people have said to us. We are dismayed at the extent to which the city’s political system is damaged. There is a deep-seated malaise in the city’s politics. As a consequence, the people of Stoke-on-Trent have been short-changed. At the same time, we have seen a whole-hearted commitment to and aspiration for Stoke-on-Trent from many people in the community but, too often, this does not get carried into political life,” says Professor Michael Clarke on launching the report.
Speaking to the Report’s main findings, Professor Clarke said that the immediate question of whether there should be a mayor and cabinet, or leader and cabinet (the two models from which Stoke-on-Trent will have to choose later this year), was less important than the need to tackle serious underlying issues in order for either governance model to succeed.
The Commission is clear that either model, with the right conditions and people, could provide the governance and leadership that Stoke-on-Trent needs. The Report argues that it is for the Council and people of the city to make the decision and that, ideally, there should be a referendum to provide credibility and legitimacy.
The Commission believe that in order to re-build a robust political life in the city:
The City Council should move to all out (four yearly) elections and ask for the city to be re-warded with single member wards with a Council smaller than the current 60 members.
The Council should design a devolved system of governance for the city at local level and work with partners to re-build community and citizen engagement with the affairs of the city and increase the involvement of young people and Stoke-on-Trent’s diverse communities.
The Council must review and reconstruct its overview and scrutiny arrangements, review Councillor’s pay and special responsibility allowances, ensuring that those who carry a special responsibility are adequately remunerated and put into place a systematic programme of development for executive and other councillors.
The City Council and the three Stoke-on-Trent MPs need to agree a protocol to underpin their respective roles, relationships and responsibilities. The national parties are called upon to re-energise and reconstruct the machinery of the local political parties.
Working with The Sentinel and other partners, the City Council must raise the profile of Stoke-on-Trent and so encourage pride in place. The development of cross-boundary working in North Staffordshire between the City Council, neighbouring local authorities and other partners needs further encouragement.
The Governance Commission is clear that the solutions to Stoke-on-Trent’s problems must be found within the city. To support this, the Commission is recommending the appointment of a Transition Board of local stakeholder representatives to which the City Council will be required to present its Action Plan for implementing the Commission’s recommendations, and to which it will report regularly on process.
Professor Clarke went on to say that the Report had special messages for key stakeholders. It was urging the Government to endorse the Commission’s recommendations and the thrust of the Report and to play its part in setting up the transition board.
It was urging Councillors to be bold in making the necessary decisions speedily. The next two-three years should be used to work together for the wider community and to listen and consult the people of Stoke-on-Trent as the reform programme is carried forward (the re-warding of the City Council could not be complete until the election of 2011).
The Commission urge the people of Stoke-on-Trent to take the energy and creativity which it has seen in so many people and places into the public and political life of the city and to become actively engaged. It urges Business, the universities and other partners, to celebrate enterprise in the city and to grasp continued opportunities for economic regeneration, as well as each working with the City Council and supporting the Transition Board.
Finally, the national political parties are urged to work with their local members to rebuild the structures and workings of local party machinery.
He said that the Commission, having been alternately excited and dismayed by what they had seen and heard, were passionate advocates of Stoke-on-Trent and eager to see the opportunities for rebuilding the city’s political life taken and acted on. “We are optimistic that the number of people we met in the city with this determination will be sufficient to transform Stoke-on-Trent,” concluded Clarke.