Cllr Izzi Seccombe OBE, Cllr Shabir Pandor, Cllr Bridget Smith and Cllr Marianne Overton MBE are Co-Chairs of the LGA’s Civility in Public Life Steering Group
The LGA is calling for evidence on the abuse and intimidation councillors face.
Good-quality robust debate and public engagement are crucial to local democracy.
However, the intimidation and abuse of councillors, in person or otherwise, can undermine democratic processes.
There are significant concerns about the impact this kind of behaviour can have on local councillors, the communities they serve, and prospective councillors.
That is why the LGA has established a significant programme of work around this issue and made a joint statement with the Welsh LGA, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Northern Ireland LGA to promote civility in public life, positive debate and support the wellbeing of elected members.
Together, we have been working to build a programme that meets the needs of our memberships, identifying and sharing good practice, and gathering the evidence of the local and national interventions required to protect councillors from abuse and intimidation.
Councillors have told us that abuse and intimidation in person and via social media are significant issues for them.
It ranges from annoying to threatening, has led to many of our councillors experiencing fear for their safety, and takes valuable time away from the vital work of representing our communities.
On rare occasions, it escalates to the physical attacks we’ve seen in the press recently.
We condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms and are determined to tackle these issues alongside the Government and the police.
To support members, we have produced a ‘Guide to handling intimidation’ and, more recently, online resources, research and a councillor guide to digital citizenship.
These assets help councillors with elements of personal safety, how to handle abuse online and setting expectations about how online communication should be conducted.
The Government plans to introduce a new electoral penalty for anyone found guilty of intimidating a candidate, campaigner or elected representative.
Anyone found guilty of this crime would have the usual criminal punishments alongside a five-year ban from standing for elected office. We welcome this new protection, but more is still needed.
Councillors have repeated time and time again that it can be hard to know where to turn when members of the public are abusive and threatening. Sometimes it isn’t clear if the abuse has gone so far as to be a criminal matter or not.
We’ve even heard examples of clearly intimidating and threatening behaviour being dismissed by the police when a report is made.
The Online Safety Bill is a good opportunity to ensure social media companies play their part in tackling abuse and intimidation – but we’re concerned it doesn’t yet address all the issues councillors are facing.
That is why we are launching a long-term ‘call for evidence’ on abuse and intimidation of councillors. The call aims to gather evidence about the extent, nature and impacts of abuse and intimidation through the personal experiences of councillors.
This evidence will support the long-term work of the LGA to highlight good practice that councils can learn from, call for other legislative changes, and challenge key partners such as the police to consider their role in preventing and responding to abuse and intimidation.
