We can think of councillors as having three broad roles – representing their ward and the wider community; policy-making and their party interest. The policy-making role is critical so that elected representatives drive the policy agenda based on a platform that they have already put to electors. Without this feature in place, councils can become officer-led and nobody elects council officers. Councillors are there to provide the political leadership although there will be times when we have overlap with the officers’ managerial leadership.
It is important that the council has the right democratic structures in place to allow efficient decision-making accompanied by robust debate. We can represent this capability with structure charts. If these charts have too many boxes and lines, if they begin to look like spaghetti, they are probably wrong. When they are wrong, they confine us to the town hall and prevent us from engaging with the community that we serve. The council chamber and committee rooms can be notoriously lonely places that in time can detach councillors from their electorate.
Crawley Council is reviewing its democratic structures to reduce the number of town hall meetings and to free up more time for community engagement for all councillors. From my own point of view, merely sitting in a Leader’s office does not make you a Leader just as sleeping in a garage would not make you a car.
The council has held a number of large-scale community engagement events in recent years. In September, we were present for several days inQueens Squaretalking with both residents and non-residents about matters of importance. Securing public involvement is critical if we are to serve the needs of local people. We will be collating and acting upon the feedback that we have received.
Assisting our community input, we have a proud tradition of financial support through our Community Grants Programme. For this programme, we have a budget of £634,000 in 2008/09 which is a substantial figure for a district council. These funds support a number of voluntary and community organisations which play a crucial role in our town. The Council are pleased to have assisted a number of these groups in locating to The Orchard, a voluntary sector ‘hub’ building on theBrighton Road.
There are many statutory organisations to assist people in times of difficulty. These organisations all have their own structures and relationships with each other. In practice, the fullest service toCrawleypeople requires a thriving voluntary and community sector to complement what the state provides.
At our October cabinet meeting, we will be considering proposals to enter into multi-year funding agreements with voluntary and community organisations as well as the recruitment of an ‘External Funding Officer’ to attract more resources for project and initiatives in Crawley. Opportunities will also be sought to streamline the grant-making process. These proposals reflect our commitment to supporting and partnering with the voluntary and community sector. They also demonstrate the realistic view that in today’s complex world, a council cannot do everything on its own.
Councillor Bob Lanzer, Leader of Crawley Borough Council
28th September 2008