Striving to improve democracy for residents - blog

Changes are coming to RBWM’s ward boundaries which could see communities weakened, your voice drowned out and governance diluted further. Here’s Wisdom Da Costa’s latest stand to improve democracy for residents

As I previously reported in my blog, “Concerns about Council plans to redraw boundaries in Windsor – Blog“, RBWM is seeking to reduce the umber of councillors by 25% (14).

A great cost saving measure I hear you say.
Well actually no. On the basis that it might save a base cost of £112K (14 x £8K), compared to total allowances for 2016/17 (click link – it makes interesting reading) of £750K or, Gross Council of £260m, it might be a large price to pay for the large negative consequences

Large negative consequences

So what are the implications of the reduction in the number of councillors?

Put simply;

Wards will not mark out your community, which they could have with some thought and desire
Councillors covering more communities or bizarre areas are less likely to understand your needs and so less likely to be able to represent your needs effectively
Independent Councillors who come from your area and understand you, are less likely to be elected so, you know who are likely to be elected
Councillors will be overworked and so, less likely, if they are minded, to respond to your requests for help
Councillors will have to do more, read more, try and understand more as the same amount of work gets divvied out amongst fewer people – in other words, work won’t get done and, potentially dangerous issues will be missed – most Councillors have daytime jobs to earn a living
Overworked Councillors will be easier to control by central leadership, if off course they are minded to
In short, governance of our Royal Borough is likely to further deteriorate

The consequences are not what I want for you and probably too high a price to pay for a £112K saving, hence my response (below) to improve democracy for residents

What did Cllr. Da Costa say on your behalf?

Here are the Summary Requests and the Executive Summary – you can click here to read my full 13 page submission, if you really want to.

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Summary requests

Please amend the boundaries to help ensure interests and identities of local communities and, to facilitate effective and convenient local government. I suggest the 2 wards of
1. Dedworth (4 members or 2 X 2 member wards of “Dedworth East” and “Dedworth West”) – more information below
2. Clewer & St. Leonards (2 members) – more information below
Amend the number of Councillors to at least 47 to help ensure the interests and identities of local communities are more fairly represented and, to facilitate effective and convenient local government though, this will still put scrutiny, and so services, at risk in an already deficient Borough and, create workload and service difficulties.
Delay redrawing the ward boundaries until at least 2023 as the voter numbers are unreliable and will certainly create short term electoral inequalities and probably create significant long term inequalities and workload problems for Councillors.

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Executive Summary

1. The more populated Dedworth is quite distinct from the wealthier Clewer; residents from each area each draw their social identity and ranges of services from separate facilities, mainly only sharing the Town Centre as common ground; their socio-economic descriptors also are distinctly different

2. Thus, based on the information, analysis and, my experiences representing people as a Councillor and I would propose two distinct areas with possibly the larger community being delineated and then split in two.

Dedworth (4 member ward or, 2 X 2 member wards with “Dedworth East” and “Dedworth West”)
Clewer & St. Leonards

3. It is important to maintain the number of members at at least 47 as reducing the number of Members, with or without the extreme challenges being faced, will

Make the role of Councillor unsustainable, reducing scrutiny
Will frustrate Localism and reduce the chance of ordinary residents standing as Councillors
Create tensions in wards combining many distinctly different communities
Reduce the chance of the fair representation of communities by party politicians who seem not to understand them

4. A 47 member Borough is likely to result in only minor variances in a single ward; this could be easily corrected by moving the boundary by one street

5. A 43 member Borough would create major variances and inequalities in most wards in Windsor which will negate the “interests and identities of local communities” and frustrate “effective and convenient local government”

6. Given that electoral numbers are likely to materially unreliable until 2023, the exercise should be abandoned and revisited after 2019

7. The principle of electoral equality can only be achieved if the figures for resident, and voter numbers, are accurate. However, there are many problems with the probity of the figures and, also the possible out turn.

8. I would suggest that;

You delay the exercise until 2023
Stipulate that a more thorough set of research be conducted by RBWM

9. Whatever their accuracy, the 2017 and 2019 figures presented will be substantially different from 2023 which will result in electoral inequalities at least between 2019 and 2023

10. If RBWM’s figures are correct then, electoral equality could be achieved with 47 Members i.e. a voter to member level of 2,275

11. To improve continuity of representation, and Effective and convenient local government, it might be beneficial to move from all out elections to elections by halves or thirds, as appropriate.

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Back up information

Here are extracts of some of the attachments and back up information to my submission

**Dedworth.Org.Uk Map of Dedworth 1880 – click to see more detail**

**Dedworth.Org.Uk Map of Dedworth 1913 – click to see more detail**

**Dedworth.Org.Uk Map of Dedworth 1938 – click to see more detail**

**Windsor CofE Parish Boundaries 2017 – click to see more detail**

Windsor Schools – Pupils from Windsor Area

		Windsor
School	Total Number On Roll	East Windsor	Eton	Windsor North	Windsor South	Windsor Villages	Windsor Total	Windsor %	Windsor East & Villages %	Windsor North (DEDWORTH) %	Windsor South (DEDWORTH) %	(DEDWORTH) Windsor North & South %
Dedworth Green First School	201	6	3	85	84	3	181	90.0%	5.0%	47.0%	46.4%	93.4%
Homer First School and Nursery	247	10	1	122	86	4	223	90.3%	6.3%	54.7%	38.6%	93.3%
Hilltop First School	255	15	1	64	108	4	192	75.3%	9.9%	33.3%	56.3%	89.6%
Alexander First School	135	6		9	103	8	126	93.3%	11.1%	7.1%	81.7%	88.9%
Clewer Green CE School	285	40	2	57	161	6	266	93.3%	17.3%	21.4%	60.5%	82.0%
Dedworth Middle School	462	23	30	133	216	24	426	92.2%	11.0%	31.2%	50.7%	81.9%
St Edward’s Catholic First School	283	72	7	94	80	6	259	91.5%	30.1%	36.3%	30.9%	67.2%
Braywood C of E First School	143	14		32	45	29	120	83.9%	35.8%	26.7%	37.5%	64.2%
St Edward’s Royal Free Ecumenical Middle School	475	146	15	123	141	7	432	90.9%	35.4%	28.5%	32.6%	61.1%
Windsor Girls’s School	710	127	38	148	158	59	530	74.6%	35.1%	27.9%	29.8%	57.7%
The Windsor Boys’ School	804	171	36	166	132	96	601	74.8%	44.4%	27.6%	22.0%	49.6%
Oakfield First School	286	157		47	63	2	269	94.1%	59.1%	17.5%	23.4%	40.9%
Trevelyan Middle School	508	159	33	44	83	30	349	68.7%	54.2%	12.6%	23.8%	36.4%
Trinity St Stephen Church of England First School	146	96	2	16	13	7	134	91.8%	76.9%	11.9%	9.7%	21.6%
The Queen Anne Royal Free CE First School	144	116	1	8	15	1	141	97.9%	83.0%	5.7%	10.6%	16.3%
The Royal School (Crown Aided)	99	6	3	4	3	41	57	57.6%	82.5%	7.0%	5.3%	12.3%
Eton Porny C of E First School	124	7	36	3	2	1	49	39.5%	16.3%	6.1%	4.1%	10.2%
St Peter’s Church of England Middle School	220	9	32	3	4	118	166	75.5%	76.5%	1.8%	2.4%	4.2%
Eton Wick C of E First School	161		106	3	1		110	68.3%	0.0%	2.7%	0.9%	3.6%
Kings Court First School	242	4		3		203	210	86.8%	98.6%	1.4%	0.0%	1.4%
	5,930	1,184	346	1,164	1,498	649	4,841
Child Poverty UK							3,300	68%