City of York Council is currently involved in discussions with the Boundary Commission about how many councillors should be elected in the 2027 Local Election. The process is two stages with first a decision on the number of councillors there should be (currently 47) and when this is set a decision on whether the wards should be one, two or three members and the specific boundaries.
The York process has seen a cross party Task Group meet several times to look at evidence including changing populations (growth and Local Plan housing sites) and to discuss councillor workloads. All groups are feeding in their views which will be reported to the council’s Corporate Scrutiny Committee and then Full Council.
York’s Conservatives Group believe York’s population will continue to rise since the last review and therefore there will naturally be more residents per councillor. This aside there are reasons (detailed in the below submission) to think the workload of councillors will be higher and also lower. However with residents facing tough times the group believes it is important that the cost of politics is limited and with no shortage of people seeking to be councillors a reduction to 41 makes sense.
Conservative Group Leader, Cllr Chris Steward said
Over recent years both Liberal Democrats and Labour have significantly increased allowances to councillors and the increasing cost of politics in unacceptable. Looking at the likes of our neighbours in North Yorkshire they have significantly more residents per councillor than we are proposing and other a far greater geography and it is a council that generally works better than York. We believe our suggestion to cut councillor numbers to 41 keeps an odd number but will see a council that works more efficiently and at lower cost.
The full text of the Conservative submission is below:
The group is pleased to give its views on the number of councillors there should be in York and in accordance with the process will in due course gives its views on boundaries and single and multi member wards at the second stage.
We believe there is a broad consensus on issues like wanting a broader range of people to be councillors and as part of that not having an overly high workload. However being a councillor is something of a unique role and with the honour and privilege of the role comes responsibility and time commitment.
York is a relatively well off city and fortunately, in aggregate, does not face the issues of many other areas. It is in generally a nice middle ground of not having the issues of a big city and also not having the travel time issues of a more rural area. The Combined Authority has added some committee meetings to councillor diaries but is also shifting some responsibilities away from the council. We also note the removal of a York Planning Committee and reductions in the number and size of Scrutiny Committees which will reduce councillor workload. Although opinions on the merits of the Cabinet / Executive model vary there seems no prospect of York moving away from it and this system reduces the workload on the average councillor – it increases the workload of Cabinet / Executive members but given their allowances equate to a minimum of £33,000 that is surely sufficient to justify the job defaulting as a full time role rather than being considered as the core of the majority of councillors.
We believe the population of York will continue to increase, including as the Local Plan housing sites are developed – although the pace of these is hard to predict. We also note the high student numbers and in some wards the exceptionally high levels of adults not registered to vote as against those registered to vote as well as the often higher impact that businesses or particular facilities (such as a heritage site or waste centre) may have. However anything on councillor numbers must clearly be based on averages.
We note some comments in the councillor survey saying that being a councillor is more work than they expected but would question whether, even in an anonymous survey, human nature would see people admit such a role was easier than they thought. In our experience the time commitment of being a councillor is not a notable barrier to those that want to do it anymore than people with work and families etc have inevitable time struggles, factors like the ability to truly make a difference or not and the way people work together more often are.
With many residents finding things tougher than ever we need to limit the cost of politics, however in York councillor allowances (and especially ‘Special Responsibility Allowances’) have increased significantly in recent years. We therefore believe we need to cut the number of councillors and suggest a figure of 41, which would still keep an odd number. We note a number of examples nationally of councillor numbers being reduced and our neighbours North Yorkshire where the average number of residents is higher per councillor and geographies are much wider; yet it is a well functioning council.
