WHO WE ARE

  CONTACT US

RDC News

Interview with Councillor Gillian Lucas-Gill of the Rochford District Council  

(8th November 2010)

Rochford Life: You’re a District Councillor?
Gillian: Yes, I was a Parish Councillor for four years and that’s a walk in the park compared to being  a District Councillor

RL: How long have you been a District Councillor?
Gillian: I’ve been a District Councillor for nearly three years. Parish is as busy as you want to make it, but it’s nothing like District. In District you’re making decisions for the whole of the area. It’s a huge District and Rochford ward has three Councillors and I’m one of them. It’s a big ward and there’s a huge variety of people in this ward. We’ve got the very wealthy and also big areas of deprivation, so we get both ends of the scale. When you think that the Councillor is supposed to be approachable and be there to help people, obviously the word gets around and so you get more and more people coming to you.

RL: The District Council has two tiers hasn’t it?
Gillian: Yes, the Executive and non-Executive and I’m non-Executive. In Rochford we have seven Executive members who cover various portfolios. There are thirty nine members all together in Rochford District Council, most of which are Conservatives.

RL:  Do you have committees that you sit upon?
Gillian: We have committees but the whole idea of the Executive system was to stop that.
The Executive System
Before the Executive we had committee after committee, and you know what committees are like, and so nothing ever really got done  - that’s unfair, it did get done but it took a long while – and the idea of the portfolio executive system was that one person would be solely responsible for whatever area, be it Business and the Arts, Young People and Health, and so on, and they make the decisions.
Key Committees
They can call on help from any of us at any time but we still have a few committees that we are required by law to have, like Review, which literally does what it says. We can review any single function of the Council. We have Audit which, again, is required by the law, and we have our area committees which are a public forum for people to bring any queries of any sort, and they happen about quarterly.
The Area Forum
I’m the Chairman of the East Area Forum, and we move them around the District for convenience and the next one is in Canewdon in the Village Hall at 7.30pm on Wednesday 17th November. At every meeting we have different speakers, one or two perhaps, maybe from Highways or the Police, the Fire Brigade, and we have Trading Standards coming to the next one. We have an open forum where the public who come can ask any question they like. If they can’t give you an answer on the night they will take your details and someone will always get back to you.         

RL: Do you get many of the public turning up?
Gillian: No, and it’s a huge shame. If there is a controversial situation you may, but no, it is a shame because it is such a good forum for people to come and ask questions of their Councillors. All of the District Councillors for that area are there and a representative from all of the Parishes from that area, so it’s a good chance to ask your questions.

RL: Is the failure of the public to show interest because generally there is this perception that ‘I can’t change anything anyway!’?
Gillian: Yes, I think to a certain extent there is that perception, but funnily enough I think there is a twofold perception: they either think they can do nothing at all, or if they come to one of us, we can change the world, but we can’t. When I stood for election, in my paperwork I said that I would always do whatever I could do, but I would be honest and I would say what’s not possible. If somebody comes to you with an impossible situation you can offer some help but if I know at the end of the day I can’t change this situation, for various reasons, I will tell them so, because I think it’s only fair on those people to do that.   

RL: Can we go back to looking at the workings of the District Council? You have the Executive. What is there to stop abuse of power by those who appear, from what you’ve said, to have an immense amount of power?
Control of Power?
Gillian: It is very simple actually. It would be very difficult for them to abuse the power. Every decision that they make is published to us, the other Councillors, and that’s where the Review Committee comes in. It’s been described as the most important Committee on the Council. We can call in any one of those decisions and say, no, we’re not happy with this and we need to stop it going through and we need to discuss it.
They will make a decision that they want to do this or they want to spend that or they want to turn this into something else, or whatever it may be, but any decision like that comes to us on a private and confidential paper, twice a week we get them, and then we have a week in which to do what we describe as, “to call it in”. In other words we can go to that portfolio holder and say, I’m not absolutely sure what you mean by this or, I’m not completely happy, but if we are really unhappy then we call it in to the Review Committee if there are three of us who think the same.
The other check that we have is that before there are Executive Meetings we have Group Meetings to discuss what they’re going to discuss and to tell them our feelings on things. Although it’s a huge responsibility – and a number of those portfolios are massive – they are not alone in as much as, although they may have completely varying opinions on it to the rest of us, they would still carry out the Council’s wishes.

RL: Do they have access to the Officers of the Council?
Gillian: Everybody has access to the Officers.
The Council Officers
The Officers at Rochford are brilliant and every one of us has access to them, and do so on a daily basis. We have very, very good Officers. We are not a Council that is Officer-led; we are Council-led, and the Officers do our bidding. They are the experts on a lot of things and we take their advice, but ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s us who make the decisions.  We have a very small staff at Rochford but they are very professional and we have a very good working relationship with them. Paul Warren, the Chief Executive of the Officers, is brilliant. There is nothing you mention legally or otherwise that the Council has to do, that he cannot tell you about in detail off the top of his head.

RL: I have asked others and I’d like to ask you, what is the political dimension of the Council? There are over thirty ‘Conservatives’ and one almost wonders why the rest are there? Is it purely so that they can give an alternative viewpoint? Are there differences of view that are politically orientated?
Gillian: Yes, obviously the others are there to make a different opinion but I wouldn’t say they are completely different.
Political or not?
The one thing that comes through is that, if you went to a Council meeting and listened to a discussion, I think what you would find is that mainly we are all there for the District. Yes, in some things we are bound to follow the party line, but yes, we also have good debates and in the main I believe the one thing we all do is stand up for the District; the District is the thing we are all concerned about. We all get on, we do have differences but our one priority is the District and it seems to work quite well. One member on their own with differences will probably not be able to change things although having said that when we have a discussion that person will be listened to and may be able to sway others.   

  
Continue to page 2 of interview

Because this interview was quite lengthy and covered a lot of areas, we have inserted sub-headings to emphasise and clarify those areas. We hope you will find that helpful.