More Councillors? More Co-option? Not Democratic!

Cambourne Parish Council wants more Councillors. In a report it is argued the Parish Council is under-represented with currently 13 Councillors and must be increased to 19 Councillors. The reason given is the number of Parish Councillors is higher in other Parish Council areas.

The Parish Council argument is therefore because other parish councils in South Cambs have more Councillors than we in Cambourne therefore should also have more! This is a dumb argument. The argument could be the other way round. There are far too many Parish Councillors even in Cambourne.

The recent electoral review for the County Council reduced the number of Councillorsfrom 69 to 61. Further, the recent review for South Cambs DC has reduced their number of Councillors from 57 to 45. In both cases the population in each authority is set to increase and the number of Councillors is set to decrease. The direction of travel is for fewer Councillors but Cambourne Parish Council wants more Councillors because of a higher population.

The Parish council makes another argument. The workload.

All the above is not an argument for more Parish Councillors. Just because the Parish Council has chosen to do more doesn't mean there should be more Parish Councillors.

The Elections argument.

As can be seen from the above table the number of co-option events were 11 and number of by-elections is 5. Since 2012 there have been no more by-elections with only co-options happening. For casual vacancies co-option takes place where no by-election has been called by 10 electors of the Parish. Co-option has meant the Parish Council can become self appointed with Parish Councillors choosing their fellow Councillors. This is wrong.

What this means is the Parish Council will become self appointing again and is therefore not democratic. Having more Councillors will mean more co-option rather than less. This is not democratic. Co-option is the easy peasey option because candidates do not need to publically campaign for our votes. Just turn up and the remaining Councillors vote for whom they like.

Ron says: Elections are the major part of our liberal democracy. Parish Councils (and in this case Cambourne Parish Council) are not enthusing the electorate to stand or vote in elections. Elections would be made easier to hold if the electorate were able to vote in smaller parish wards say one representing each of the 3 villages that make up Cambourne.