- Conference
- 2016 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 14 October 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Women are under-represented in politics. The lack of women in Westminster is increasingly reported but the lack of women in local government is very often overlooked.
According to the Fawcett Society women make up only 32% of local councillors in England and 24% in Northern Ireland. Only 12.3% of local authority leaders in England are women (2014), compared to 16.6% in 2004 and only 13% of elected mayors are women.
The Fawcett society argue there has been very little improvement in the level of women councillors in the last 10 years with the numbers having dropped in Scotland and Wales and the number of women leaders dropping by 5% over the same period.
There are many hurdles women face when standing for local election:
• Combining work, caring responsibilities and running a campaign for an election is very difficult to juggle,
• Councillors are often paid little (or not at all) so, unless they are retired or independently wealthy, they must also have a job. Those trying to combine caring responsibilities with a job will struggle to take on time-consuming roles in local politics.
• Local council meetings are often held at awkward times, are unlikely to provide childcare expenses or offer flexible working
• Women councillors are often pigeon-holed into traditionally female portfolios such as Children’s or Adult social care and are rarely in the cabinet where spending decisions are made.
Local councillors should have access to the same employment law and practice requirements as the rest of the public sector. Councillors shouldn’t be treated as self-employed and be exempt from employment regulation such as formalised maternity rights.
Council meetings should be run to allow engagement of all its councillors and innovative ways such as attending meetings online should be used to help people with caring responsibilities and/or jobs to attend.
Conference calls on the National Women’s Committee to
• Work with Labour Link to look at how we encourage women to become involved in politics at local level.
• Develop a mentoring scheme where women with experience of being councillors can mentor those who are interested in standing for election.
• Work, in partnership with Labour Link, to recognise employment regulation such as formalised maternity rights for councillors.
