Democracy is about more than efficiencies

By-elections were thin on the ground in January, with attention in the local government community focused instead on the structural reforms proposed in the recent English Devolution White Paper, and the consequent postponement of some of this year’s scheduled county council elections.

Not that the contests that did take place were wholly devoid of interest. 

The Liberal Democrat gain from the Conservatives in North Devon surely owed something to the rebadging of the same candidate who had finished a close second, standing as an Independent, in 2023 and with no Liberal Democrat then in the field.  

In Bath and North East Somerset, an Independent very narrowly inflicted on the Liberal Democrats their first ever by-election defeat in the history of the unitary authority.  

The Saltford ward falls within the constituency lost to Labour by former Business Secretary and Brexit Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg at the July 2024 general election, and the winning candidate was a former Chair of Saltford Parish Council.

It is that kind of hyper-localism that may disappear if the Government’s proposals to roll out unitary authorities across England go ahead. More than 6,500 district council seats risk abolition, and a sharp reduction in councillor numbers and an increase in the councillor/elector ratio is inevitable.

In Buckinghamshire, for example, the creation of a county unitary has reduced the overall number of elected representatives from 236 to 97; in North Yorkshire, the figures are 301 and 90. 

Already, we have fewer elected members per head of population than most western democracies: think of the myriad French ‘communes’.

Evidence we have collated over the years suggests that engagement in, and turnout at, English local elections is – all things being equal – higher in those authorities that are closer to the electorate, even if they have much lower budgets and provide fewer services than their ‘upper tier’ counterparts.  

The efficiency and economies-of-scale argument is, of course, a powerful one, but democracy is about more than just that.

The Government should be careful what it wishes for in a purely party political sense, too. 

Corby Borough Council, in Northamptonshire, was Labour for all bar three of its 48 years of existence; there seems little likelihood of Labour ever controlling the new North Northamptonshire of which it is now a part. 

Something similar could be the case in a range of other discrete towns and cities. 

For example, Labour has provided the leadership in Exeter, Ipswich and Norwich for the vast bulk of the past 40 years; in Stevenage, the party has had majority control since the council was established in 1974.  

It is hard to envisage a unitary Devon, Suffolk, Norfolk or Hertfordshire ever being in the party’s column.

For more data on all recent by-elections, please download the spreadsheet below: