One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Lyn Cadwallader
Chief Executive
Prif Weithredwr
The Voice of Community and
Town Councils
Llais Cynghorau
Chymuned a Thref
Implementation and
interpretation of the Local
Government Wales Measure
2011
www.onevoicewales.org.uk
Community and Town Councils - some key
facts:
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1st tier of government in Wales
735 community and town councils across Wales
8,000 Community Councillors – provide their time
unpaid (IRP report pending)
Funded by local precept added to council tax
Combined annual expenditure excess of £45 million
From very small rural communities to large towns
spending in excess of £750,000
Cover 94% of land mass and 70% of the population
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Community and Town Councils - some key
facts:
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Support to local voluntary groups and associations
Wide range of powers and some duties (e.g. allotments,
cemeteries, bus shelters, Christmas lights, community
centres, crime prevention, highways, open spaces, play
areas, toilets, and community transport)
Key role in consultations, local planning applications and
community safety initiatives
One employee, the clerk, typically administers the affairs
of community councils – often part-time
Average number of seats in Welsh councils is 11
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Changing times...legislative and
policy context
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Aberystwyth Report 2003
Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011 – Power of Wellbeing
Simpson Review – 21 recommendations for how local government
should be delivered in future
One Wales: One Planet - Welsh Government central organizing
principle
Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Act 2006
Sustainable Development Bill
Local Democracy Consultation
Current financial climate – pressure for new models of working at
the local level
Currently awaiting statutory guidance on the Local Government
(Wales) Measure 2011
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
How the Welsh approach has
differed
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Since devolution, there have been stark contrasts in the ways in which the
UK and Welsh Governments have approached public service reform
In England:
centred on the importance of offering choice to users as to what services they
receive.
that by allowing public services to compete with each other for users, it will force the
poorest performers to improve.
Free’s services from central control but requires performance monitoring and league
tables to drive forward improvement.
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In Wales: reform has focused on encouraging collaboration, rather than
competition, between service providers.
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based on the presumption that Welsh population densities are too low to support
multiple providers
emphasis on sharing expertise and resources to maximize efficiency gains
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One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
A new role for Community and Town
Councils...
Under the Local Government Wales Measure 2011, Community and Town Councils have
the power to promote wellbeing.
“In Wales, sustainable development is defined in terms of the enhancement of
the well-being of people and communities, and quality of life. There is broad
stated public support for this approach: a 2005 poll, 89% of those surveyed in
Wales agreed with the statement: A government’s prime objective should be
achieving the greatest happiness of the people, not the greatest wealth. The
other important feature of this definition is long-termism – reflecting the
pursuit of wellbeing for future generations, locking in a commitment to
maintain ‘endowments’ or natural, social, human and economic capital that will
affect wellbeing in the future. It is important to recognise that sustainable
development is not only or primarily an environmental concept – it is not
‘greening up’ of government activity, but a broader and deeper concept.”
Clive Bates, Director General Sustainable Futures, Welsh Government, July
2011
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Local Government (Wales) Measure
2011 – key changes (1)
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Community meetings
Community polls
Merging or Grouping of Community Councils
Member Co-options
Community Youth Representative Members
Council Areas and Electoral Arrangements
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Local Government (Wales) Measure
2011 – key changes (2)
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The Power of Wellbeing in Wales
Grants
Charter Agreements
An Accreditation Scheme
Payments and Pensions for Members
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Local government functions in
Wales – a comparison
Unitary Authorities in Wales
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£4 billion via Welsh Government revenue grants
150,000 staff
1,257 councillors
0ver 400 statutory services
Community and Town Councils
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56% of clerks work less than 10 hours per week
Average (median) precept for a community council in 2010-11 was
£13,000…£45 million precept across Wales annually
8,000 councillors
40 statutory powers
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Implementing the Local Government
Measure – key facts
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Skills and training
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1 in 3 councils support notion of accreditation scheme in Wales
One third of councils send councillors on training courses (although
only last year we trained 1,000th councillor)
Three quarters of councils will ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ use the Power
of Well-being
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ICT
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47% of Councils in Wales have a website
7 in 10 have access to the internet
1 in 20 have no computer, email, internet
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One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Implementing the Local Government
Measure – key facts
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Interacting with Communities
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Reporting local problems/planning issues
6% of councils have youth representatives
Most common method of communication is telephone
Members of community often did not know what the responsibilities
of the community and town councils were
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Interacting with Unitary Authorities (UA’s)
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Three quarters have a good relationship with UA’s
9 Charters at present
Problem with UA’s and slow response times
Quarter of C&TC’s sit on UA’s committees
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One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
A model for the community council
of the future (1)…
Future roles for community councils...
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Identifying, utilising and optimising assets
Achieving fairness for everyone
Empowering local governance
Increasing resources for community benefit
Enjoying locally relevant services
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
A model for the community council
of the future (2)…
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Enriching social capital and well-being
Valuing local distinctiveness
Developing reliable infrastructure
Enhancing environmental capacity
Supporting a dynamic local economy
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Community and Town Council
Sustainability Action Plans
The main elements of sustainable development that are relevant at the
community level can be summarised as follows:
1. Energy efficiency
2. Community owned renewable energy generation
3. Food and allotments
4. Management of green space and parks
5. Management of local natural resources and ecosystem services
6. Reuse, recycling and waste management
7. Sustainable travel planning
8. Measures to promote well being
9. Stimulating local sustainable trade
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Strong Roots
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Partnership by Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Wales, One Voice
Wales and The Climate Change Consortium Wales.
A project to increase the capacity of community and
town councils to both lead and support sustainable
development
Enable the development of sustainable, resilient, lowcarbon communities.
A bilingual training programme now being delivered by
Cynnal Cymru to the Community and Town Council
sector
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Strong Roots
Councillors will build their capacity to:
 Take action on sustainable development and
climate change;
 Support voluntary and residents groups to
develop their own initiatives;
 Provide leadership on sustainable development
in their communities and facilitate effective links
between citizens and other tiers of government
and public administration.
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Penllyn Partnership
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Partnership between five town and community councils in the Bala
area
Set up originally to improve the relationship with Gwynedd council
In 2008/9 Gwynedd Council entered into a formal agreement with
these authorities whereby the authorities manage the following
services –
 Grass cutting
 Management of local toilets
 Management of street furniture, benches etc
 Management of recreation areas and children’s play areas
 Some road works
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Penllyn Partnership
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Services provided have developed incrementally
over the past 3 years
The partnership ha s now secured a grant of
£100,00 - pressure to set up a separate body
Issues:
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What kind of body to set up?
The creation of local Forums by Gwynedd
roles and responsibilities
need to employ staff with appropriate skills
Issues about representation
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Monmouthshire RDP Community
Led Planning Pilots
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Realising rural potential initiative
Axis 3 funding
‘Connecting Monmouthshire’ pilots
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Community led planning
2 day over weekend consultation
Identification of local service issues
Defining potential future roles for community councils
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Case Studies
Mold Town Council – Cittaslow
Gelligaer Community Council – Environmental initiatives
Penllyn Community Council – community growing
Presteign Town Council – re-cycling
Blaenau Ffestiniog – The Green Town initiative
Nantglyn Community Council – energy efficiency
Llandough Community Council – Biodiversity Scheme
Talgarth – sustainable regeneration
Mumbles Community Council – community planning
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
There are challenges though...
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Funding the transitional growth of local councils
Need for bottom up as well as top down community planning
processes
Some kind of bridging will need to take place between the local
community and the authorities to create the right decision making
spaces to enable communities to engage eg participatory budgeting
Move to vertical integration of community planning (multi-level
governance)rather than horizontal co-ordination across agencies
Firm agreements on procedures or protocols for communicating
between local communities and key stakeholder organisations eg
social enterprises
Recognising time will be needed to embed above including training
provision
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
And finally a message to community
and town councils post 2012
elections...
“Review what you are doing for your communities
against your statutory powers including the Power of
Wellbeing and be ambitious for your communities in
future...challenge yourselves to improve...learn from your
innovative peers actions and work with local agencies to
deliver better environments for your residents”
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru
Thank You
Lyn Cadwallader
Chief Executive
Prif Weithredwr
Diolch yn Fawr
www.onevoicewales.org.uk
Our workshop tasks today (in 20
minutes...)
The future role of Community (Parish) Councils in
the provision of services to local communities:
3 Ideas for action that can be developed/delivered in
Wales / England
3 Issues that others in the conference may be
interested in knowing about or any questions or
challenges that the workshop identified.
One Voice Wales
Un Llais Cymru