Why Does Nothing Get Done?
Six Meetings and Six Minutes
You may wonder why it is that "nothing ever gets done by the Council" — a common complaint from many residents. Why do they choose cycle lanes over fixing potholes? Why don’t they stand up for residents over issues like the Cresta Court hotel and its use for housing migrants? And why aren’t our schools their top priority, ensuring every family gets a place near where they live?
As the Conservative Opposition, it is our job to scrutinise this Labour administration. But over the years, Trafford Labour has worked hard to strip us of that opportunity.
The lack of real scrutiny was already evident across Greater Manchester. Take Mayor Burnham’s Greater Manchester Combined Authority: it approved a £2.6 billion budget for 2024/25 with just 22 hours of oversight and always signed off under pressure. All scrutiny panels are hand-picked by Andy Burnham, with only four seats allotted to opposition parties, all of them approved by him. No wonder they were able to waste £100 million on the disastrous Clean Air Zone scheme.
Everyday people care about the basics, the things they see and feel in their communities. After eight years of Labour running Trafford, propped up by the Lib Dems who helped them take power in the first place, those basics are being ignored.
In Trafford, the situation is the same and sadly getting worse. Labour holds the majority on the Scrutiny Committee, chooses what to scrutinise, and essentially marks its own homework. At full Council, opposition Councillors can propose motions to influence policy and question the administration on its many failings, but Labour has now restricted even this. One might want to know why the Labour-run council has failed to sign off the last two years of accounts?
At Council meetings, opposition groups are now limited to two questions per group and just one motion, previously these were unlimited. Our last motion raised the urgent need for a new school. The Greens, by contrast, used their motion to ask the Council not to use acronyms in paperwork – seriously! With only six Council meetings a year, that equates to just six motions and 12 questions that we are allowed to ask, on behalf of residents, in a whole year.
The latest round of time limits imposed by Labour now allows just 30 seconds to ask a follow-up question. In practice, that gives us just six minutes per year to question this administration in public.
Meanwhile, Labour has kept its £600,000 Communications Team, made up of eight full-time staff churning out social media posts to tell us not to worry while all support for opposition parties has been scrapped. We now have no Political Assistant, let’s be honest we were only ever afforded one to help us navigate 900-page reports or scrutinise decisions on behalf of residents that are given to us often with only 24 hours’ notice.
If this is not the peak of the attack on scrutiny in Trafford, it soon will be. We’re heading for a system where democracy is just theatre - all performance, no power.
The show must go on and we will keep fighting but we need your help.
Cllr Nathan Evans Messenger Newspaper column piece
Councillor for Hale Barns & Timperley South
Leader of the Trafford Conservatives