Fears Wrexham’s 34 Community Councils Could Be Cut To 2 – But Invite Issue Means No Real Debate

Community Councillors and other interested parties met last night to discuss the impact proposed authority mergers could have on Community Councils across Wrexham

An invite to the event had been sent to Wrexham candidates for the Assembly Elections, along with all Clerks and Community Councillors and Wrexham Council Leader Mark Pritchard and Councillor Hugh Jones.

Apologies were sent from Lesley Griffiths, Ken Skates and Aled Roberts although it was noted that Mr Skates only had the formal invite this morning, with other invites including our own not turning up before the meeting.

Welsh Labour Councillor Dana Davies, who was attending with her Ruabon Community Council hat on, provided the opposing view to the general tearing apart of the proposals that have emanated from the current Labour controlled Welsh Government.

The draft bill (viewable on this dull PDF) contains the more famous plans over merging Councils, possibly such as Wrexham and Flintshire together. The bill also contains elements on Community Councils and potential changes to how they are run, and some fear it could mean mergers in Wrexham to leave only a handful at best.

The sign in list at the meeting showed the strength of interest with representatives of many Community Council’s across the Wrexham area attending.

An introduction to the draft bill was made, which includes proposals for mergers of Local Authorities (Such as the Flintshire/Wrexham mergers) but could also include a reduction in the number of town and Community Councils. The bill goes further to increase the workload and possible cost base on Community Councils, with a new ‘competency concept’ that includes (non qualified) opinion of accounts plus ‘employment of a clerk with a relevant professional qualification’.

The meeting was also told of other proposed requirements including the production of annual reports, and a ‘requirement to introduce recording of Town and Community Council meetings’.

The meeting was dominated by Wrexham Council Leader Mark Pritchard, who was at the meeting as a representative of Wrexham Council but also spoke in terms of his role as a Community Councillor.

Cllr Pritchard talked at length over the wider Council merger issues as well as the agenda items on the proposed Community Council changes, stating: “The draft bill raises more questions than answers. It reverses the effect of localism and moves things more centralised. We need a clear picture and plan from the Welsh Government.

“We have opposed this, as Wrexham Council we have a mandate from all councillors who voted not to merge at this time. We understand we are times of austerity and have to make savings, what we don’t want to do in Wrexham is lose the identity of a town. We certainly do not want to merge, and I won’t speak on behalf of Flintshire. Cardiff want to micromanage us.”

Heading back towards the agenda, he added to light applause: “If this (bill) goes through we will have a reduction of Community Councils across Wrexham to two inside Wrexham. The bill will be the death of local Community Councils.”

Cllr Davies interjected asking Cllr Pritchard for specific references over his criticism of the bill noting the ‘strengthened financial governance’ and other new beneficial elements proposed. She said: “What part of the bill gives you that idea there will be only two Community Councils in Wrexham, as I have read the bill and it is about strengthening Community Councils to make them competent and safer.”

Cllr Pritchard was unable to give a specific section in answer however told the meeting that ‘Lesley Griffiths, Ken Skates, Susan Elan Jones, Ian Lucas, they all support one authority in North Wales’, saying specifically, “They made it clear they wanted to reduce Community Councils”.

He added: “There are no figures in the bill, I wanted AM’s to come (to this meeting) so they could answer this. They are not here.”

Cllr Davies fired back saying she ‘hoped we could focus on the content of the bill’, explaining other elements of the bill including suggestions that two thirds of Community Councillors are elected rather than some being made up of mainly co-opted members.

This triggered a wider debate from the floor over if forcing elections would create problems as some struggle to get people to come forward as volunteers, let alone go through a election process- with representatives from Chirk and Ruabon noting that ‘99% of councils struggle to get members’.

The debate swung back to the numbers of Community Council’s left if the proposals went through, with Cllr Pritchard again taking the opportunity to slam the Welsh Government, “What are they proposing on the number of Community Councils in Wales? No Assembly Member has told us the figures.”

Again Cllr Davies was the respondent, telling the meeting that the numbers are unknown as the processes are incomplete and once a local democracy and Boundary Commission review completes the actual numbers would be known, “It is the very small ones, that are not generating the certain amount of turnover that they are looking to merge with a second community council.”

Explanation was given to the range of the precepts in the 34 community councils, which indicate the turnovers to a degree, with some in Wrexham as low as £1185 with others £280,000. It was noted by some that merging several smaller ones would still not weigh up to one single larger one, thus the logic expressed by a few at the meeting that Wrexham could end up with a handful at most.

As Cllr Davies appeared to be the only one speaking to defend the plans she took some direct questions, including one asking her: “Who is going to pay for the reorganisation and redundancies which will number many thousands due to council mergers?”

At this point a line appeared to be drawn over the amount and topic of responses she was prepared to give, with Cllr Davies saying: “I’m here as vice chair of Ruabon Community Council. I think the (attendance) issue with the local Labour AM’s is the timing of the invitation that went out to them. I have come here to discuss the Draft Local Government Bill in terms of Community Councils. It is not right for me to respond to questions.”

A query was raised over the invitation system, with the Chair noting it was ‘legitimate to say it could have been difficult for candidates to rearrange diaries’.

The meeting restarted with a bout of politicking, kicked off with Cllr Pritchard taking umbrage at the presumption the proposed bill is certain to happen, “You said ‘will’, however in May there is fortunately an election. If Labour get back in they will drive this through. I am told only Labour support this white paper. I still believe there is a way forward rather than being bulldozed.”

Mabon ap Gwynfor, Plaid Cymru’s candidate for Clwyd South, said: “Wrexham Council are criticised for cuts that are carried through from Welsh Government, and there will be more cuts and you will be blamed for that too. We have to be clear this is a Welsh Government issue, a Welsh Labour creation.

“We would not support Labour in this. We can work closer with Flintshire and Denbighshire but there is no need for mass changing of our boundaries.”

Speaking of the scale of local authorities, he added: “Wrexham Council is one of the largest employers, what will happen to the staff and pensions? We can’t go ahead with it.”

Simon Baynes, Welsh Conservative candidate for Clwyd South said: “I echo Mabon’s point. Community Council’s fulfil an important role. The way to oppose this is via the elections.

“Clustering can be used to bring Community Councils together and bring services together. In my experience it is very very complicated, what is being proposed is extremely difficult and expensive to carry out it will not save money it will cost more.”

Later in the meeting Andrew Atkinson, Conservative candidate for Wrexham also spoke saying how in his experience in Herefordshire, a referendum was used on a Community Council merger and it worked well.

He said: “The most political I will get is to say our view is we would put it to a referendum.”

Cllr Davies noted to the chair that ‘potentially we could be bordering on electoral issues and we need to be mindful of that’.

Further feedback on the plans came from the floor with one questioning if it was a reversion to Clwyd and what was any difference in the plans compared to the old system.

Cllr Pritchard responded: “I don’t believe there is and I have spent a lot of time on various drafts. I like to work on facts figures and numbers. This does not give facts and figures. Do any of us know how many Community Councils will be left if this goes forward? No Minster can tell me and that worries me.”

Questions were also raised over the definitions of ‘qualification’ over clerks, ‘competency’ and annual reports all appearing to sit uneasy with some at the meeting as being extra layers of bureaucracy.

One element of the proposals, that would see meetings ‘recorded’ was debated as though it would be publicly accessible records or even webcast. Concerns were raised that there could be large costs incurred, however one Community Council representative noted he thought it would be ‘very straightforward and cheap to do’ as they have a simple system in place to aide the creation of minutes.

Other concerns over the data protection act and possible ‘reprisals’ over publication of meeting recordings were raised, although it was explained ‘what we say at Community Council level is fact, but could offend.’

Again along with the common theme, Cllr Davies was the person defending the proposals pointing out that the bill had no mentioned of a requirement to broadcast meetings. She said: “It says recording in the bill, I read that to support the clerk. Broadcasting would concern me, everybody knows everybody in the community and the data protection element would concern me.”

Broadcasting online would not create a problem for those in Minera as it was pointed out that a fair number struggle to get online at enough speed to stream anything.

The geographical issues over Community Council mergers was raised by representatives from the Ceiriog Valley who explained their area was ‘completely different’ to possible merger areas of Ruabon and Chirk, “They don’t know our area and its completely different, as our area is rural.”

One speaker encouraged the opposite of the interpretation of the proposals, “Most of us are volunteers, who is going to take care of the small stuff that makes life worth living? Lets have more community councils!”

The representative for Gwersyllt spoke of his recent trip to Llandudno (which we assume was the Welsh Local Government Association event) and déjà vu over the comments shared at the evening meeting. He said: “Most of the concerns were shared from north and mid Wales clerks. The most sensible thing I heard was from a man from Newtown who said ‘if it ain’t broke, why are you trying to fix it?’ ”

The Newtonian Man’s view was echoed by many who explained views similar to “Is there not a really good accountable structure at the moment? People stop me in the street, or turn up to meetings, we don’t need these plans. We have the structure that really works formalising it is counter to democracy.”

The Chair wound up the meeting saying ‘We will wait and see what happens on election day and take it from there.’