Cllr Anthony Fairclough writes:

“Hi – one of the things I am going to try out is a monthly round up of some of the things I do as a councillor. Hopefully it’s interesting to at least some people. Let me know what you think.

This one’s a bit ‘process-heavy’ but others should be less so!

May 2022 saw the most successful local election results ever for Lib Dems in Merton

Election campaign and results

I’d taken the last two weeks of the campaign off work so that I could focus on the campaign. This passed in a flash of speaking to hundreds of people across the borough. I woke at 5am-ish on the day of the election, Thursday 5^th May, and eventually went to bed at about 8am on  Friday 6^th May.

A long day, but worth it. I am very proud of the result in my own ward and for Liberal Democrats across the borough.

People had really responded to our campaign for a more open, competent and caring Council. And as the official opposition we’ll do what we can to put as much of our manifesto in place over the next four years.

Induction to the Council

I was delighted to be re-elected as group leader of the Liberal Democrats by my colleagues, and therefore Leader of the Opposition on Merton Council.

Whilst my newly elected colleagues attended Council induction and training sessions, my work as leader involved meeting with all Lib Dem councillors to discuss their interests and hopes for the next few years, and their training needs. That in turn influenced the Council committees and positions they were nominated to.

As a much bigger group we have also begun a process of looking at how we work together on the Council, and continue to campaign in our communities and stand up for our residents and our areas.

As the ‘official opposition’ on the Council we also get more staff support and regular discussions with senior Council officers. Some of my time this month has been involved in setting up the new staff team and the work they do. I have also been arranging regular meetings with the Leader of the Council, and the Council’s senior officers, for myself and our new front bench leads.

Merton Council’s inner workings

Merton Council is a “leader and cabinet model”, which basically means that pretty much all the decisions reside are made by the Leader of the Council, and therefore the senior Council officers. There is also a Cabinet, who are the councillors in charge of specific areas – appointed by the Leader. This is the Council administration.

This means that the role of all the other councillors  is to hold the administration to account and apply pressure in various ways – formally and informally – to try to get changes we want to see.

One of the ways councillors do this is through the various Council committees.

Some of these are quasi-judicial and carry a regulatory role – eg the Planning Applications Committee and the Licensing Committee.

Some of these committees look at the internal workings of the Council – eg the Standards and General Purposes committee (which reviews the Council’s audit and some of its internal operations).

In addition, there are four ‘scrutiny committees’: the Overview and Scrutiny Commission, the Sustainable Communities Panel, the Healthier Communities and Older People’s Panel and the Children and Young People’s Panel.

These committees monitor and review the work of the Council administration and make recommendations to the Cabinet. The chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Commission is nominally the head of all the scrutiny work, and by convention should be from an opposition party.

The chairs of all these bodies receive an additional allowance to help them take more time to do the work. The unpaid vice chairs of each committee have to come from a different party to the chair, and are supposed to help agree the committee’s work programme.

“Payroll vote”

Currently Labour Council bosses  make sure that all the committee chairs (bar one) are Labour councillors. Since 2010 they’ve appointed one of the Merton Park Residents Association councillors the chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Commission. They’ve never checked with other councillors that this is who they want to represent them as the head of the Scrutiny function.

Effective scrutiny

We think the chairs of all these committees should be elected by all councillors – not just the administration party. And by secret ballot. This means the best person might get the job, without party politics being an issue. However, this is not how Labour council bosses want to do things.

I hoped the new Leader of the Council would agree to something different.  So in my email congratulating him on his nomination as Leader, I suggested a meeting to discuss this.

The meeting didn’t happen, and the only concession made was to give the Conservatives a vice-chair of a committee, choosing to block my appointment as the vice chair of the Sustainable Communities Panel.

Annual Council

The first Council meeting after an election has some important functions. Firstly it appoints the new Mayor – the Mayor is a ceremonial role that raises money for charity. The Mayor also chairs the meetings of the full Council. My role involved seconding the thanks to the outgoing Mayor – you can see my speech here (although the sound recording is pretty poor).

The Council also elects the new leader. The most important decision it will take in four years, given the power the leader of the Council has. You can see my response to the Labour Group’s nomination here (sound recording again bad).

At this meeting, Lib Dem councillors Paul Kohler and Hina Bokhari tried to establish a working group to look into the election of chairs of Council committees. This was voted down by Labour councillors – see them in action here.

Starting as we mean to go on

One of the issues in the election was the poor handling of the Council’s waste contractors. In May I called for a cross-party ‘summit’ to address the ongoing issues with waste across the borough. You can read my Open Letter here – although to date, I’ve received no reply!

I’ve attended a number of events: most notably the (outgoing) Mayor’s Thank You reception, where he spoke movingly of his time in South Africa working for a health charity. With other colleagues I also attended the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Thanksgiving Dinner, hosted by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Elders Association in Morden.

Over the weeks, residents continue to write and call in to ask for support with various issues.

Although I split the work with my ward colleagues, I’ve a number of ‘open’ and concluded enquiries in May – from questions about school streets, details of support for those suffering from the cost of living crisis, noisy trams, missing street trees – and several issues to do with planning and licensing. The latter include the application by Travelodge for a premises licence (see here), and a number of matters supporting residents where there are/are potential conflicts between builders and the occupiers of neighbouring premises.

Do get in touch if we can help with anything!”