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A cross-party ‘Be a councillor' campaign, aimed at persuading more people to represent their communities and stand as candidates in local elections, has notched up some notable early success stories, as Deborah Benady explains London may be a huge city but, in these testing times, its councils need to attract politicians from the widest-possible pool of talent to help face the challenges which lie ahead. Yet, when the Leadership Centre looked at the figures on where London's councillors were drawn from after the 2006 elections, it wasn't a particularly compelling picture. Just 20% of councillors elected were aged below 40 – compared with 60% of Londoners – 20% were of black and minority ethnic (BME) origin – compared with 29% of residents – and only 33% were women. London's councillors, it seemed, were mainly being selected from a small pool – those people who are active in their local political parties. That, we felt, was a terrible waste of all the many talents that Londoners, with their wide diversity of race, age, gender and experience, could bring to local politics. The centre thought it was time to try something different – to challenge the idea that we have heard time and time again, that people simply aren't interested in local politics or in becoming councillors. London Councils was also concerned about the issue, and through its Capital Ambition programme, agreed to provide support for an initiative to widen the talent pool. Together with the main political groups, we set up the ‘Be a councillor' campaign. The idea was to turn political groups into ‘talent scouts' who – much like football managers and head-hunters, in their different ways – actively go out, find suitable people and ask them to stand for election. A guide to recruitment was written, and leads from each of the political parties were nominated to work with selected councils. For Steve Hitchins, the former leader of Islington who led the project for the Liberal Democrats, the idea was straightforward. He says: ‘In my experience, there are thousands of civic-minded people out there who are already active in their communities or would like to be, but aren't involved in party politics. We wanted councillors to look around, identify those people, and then go and ask them to stand.' Simple but effective. The first step was to think laterally about who might make a good candidate, and the second step was to go and ask them to stand. In one afternoon Liberal Democrat councillors in one south London authority put together a list of 44 local people they thought might have the skills and personal qualities needed to become a councillor, but who weren't already involved in party politics. One such person was Darren Thornton. Active in his local community and chair of his estate's residents' association, Mr Thornton had not even considered local politics until a Liberal Democrat councillor suggested he might stand for them. ‘At first, I thought I should stand as an independent, as I didn't feel especially politically driven. ‘However, the Liberal Democrats offered me support and advice. I realised that I did identify politically with them, and I joined the party,' explains Mr Thornton, who is now a councillor in Richmond. In Brent, a local campaign inspired by president Barack Obama's election in the US persuaded 40 people from a variety of backgrounds, ages, genders, faiths and races to stand for the first time as Labour candidates for the council. Deputy leader, Muhammed Butt, believes the range of representative candidates was a key reason for Labour's success in taking control of the council. He says: ‘At a time when all the national indicators were against Labour, we had a slate of new candidates who people could really relate to, 21 of whom were elected and have totally changed politics in Brent.' Conservative councillors were equally imaginative and in Lambeth, group leader, Cllr John Whelan, set out to ‘broaden the DNA bank' of aspiring councillors, to include people who weren't even party members. Starting with local people who had worked in [London mayor] Boris Johnson's mayoral campaign, he invited as many sympathetic people he could find to an event where 12 of the 30 who attended eventually applied to become candidates. ‘Having started out as sceptics about the "Be a councillor" initiative, there is no doubt we've been converted to a new way of doing things,' says Cllr Whelan. And the results of all this hard work and ‘thinking outside the box' have been impressive, believes Labour lead on the project, Paul Wheeler, who explains: ‘The early figures show that the number of BME councillors in London has gone up from 20% to 31%, the numbers of women councillors is up several percentage points, and when the final figures are collated later in the year, they will show that the average age of London's councillors is down considerably.' Joe Simpson, director of partnerships and relationships, is pleased with the results, but even more ambitious for the future. He suggests: ‘This campaign has shown that there are thousands of people out there, in London and in other communities, who are just waiting to be asked to stand as councillors. This active recruitment process has to become just part of the way we do things in local politics. ‘And then, we have to find a way to ensure that those who are recruited via this route are supported and encouraged to find their way into leadership positions. Representative councils must be led by representative cabinets.' Deborah Benady is from the Leadership Centre for Local Government

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WHITEHALL

Tapping into the talent pool

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