Power to the people: Lib Dems call for better community engagement

This Motion builds on my request to the Leader last month, to invite the Mayor of the West Midlands to attend a future meeting of the City Council. I was pleased by Cllr Cotton’s response that he was not only happy to pick this up with Richard Parker, but that improving engagement between the city council and the combined authority was already being discussed as part of the constitution working group.

And as pleased as I was to get a supportive nod from the Leader, we have articulated in the Motion that we’d like the Mayor of the West Midlands to commit to attend once a year and provide a report that can be discussed, and with an opportunity to ask questions.

This isn’t just a ‘nice to have’, it is a necessary piece of democratic and accountable governance between the city and the region, as it involves multi-million-pound funding deals across skills and employment, housing and regeneration and transport – huge strategic levers for growth and prosperity in our city.

Just last month, the city council announced its £76m share of the new regional devolution deal with Government, which saw the West Midlands Combined Authority receive an overall settlement of £389m. This first integrated settlement runs from the 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2026, so it would seem appropriate to hear from the Mayor before that ends and the pre-election period begins.

One specific investment project identified for Birmingham’s £76m includes “helping community anchor organisations to support their local area and bring underutilised spaces back into use”. This seems to chime well with the localisation theme of this Motion, and certainly something I’d like to hear more about.

Empowering local communities and paying attention to local problems is central to the Liberal Democrats approach to community politics and has been a formally adopted strategy since the 1970s. And having started a community group myself a decade ago, representing residents, listening their issues and working in partnership with local groups is central to my approach as a Councillor.

Therefore, the news that ward meetings were to be reduced to one a year was not only unacceptable for me in Yardley East but seemed ridiculous, and in fact I would have just carried on having an open public meeting of some sort, somehow, three or four times a year. 

I had 30-40 people at my last ward meeting in May, and part of that was engagement specifically about an Environment, Transport and Neighbourhoods Fund (ETNF) parking scheme in Old Yardley Village, which at one time was a condition of being granted the funding.

Nobody was particularly happy with the solution, but with the guidance of highways officers who attended, we kept some elements and rejected the controversial bits, which felt like pretty good local democracy to me. 

We also had the local neighbourhood police sergeant and a couple of his constables, who updated residents on local policing matters, answered questions and responded to specific issues raised of anti-social behaviour in Old Yardley Park afterwards, with patrols and a home visit. Again, that felt like the effective civic partnership with the police and residents, outlined in The Birmingham Promise.

But for my ward meetings, I book the venue, draft the agenda, invite residents and guests and take a note of actions. The Council pays the small room hire fee and, if available, an officer takes a minute and publishes it as a formal record. So, in theory, for less than £100 a year and with my time, we could continue to have an important open public forum for local residents to ask questions of the council and police, as well as an opportunity for community groups to engage. 

But is it the duty of the council to facilitate that regular and formal engagement with residents and the community; and is it the duty of councillors, officers of the council and neighbourhood police to “listen to the people of Birmingham, act on what they say, and be held accountable”. Of course it is, and so says The Birmingham Promise.

So, I would ask the Chamber to support the Motion proposal to reinstate four ward meetings per year, for the good of healthy local democracy in our city.

Just to talk a little bit more about neighbourhood policing, I’m hopeful that the Chamber will welcome our proposal to hear from both the West Midlands Chief Constable, Craig Guilford, and the Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Foster, on a meaningful and annual basis. I have been a Councillor since October 2021, and I have not heard from either in any formal way in that time. And I’m not sure how effective neighbourhood policing can work in this city without a meaningful partnership with the Council’s local representatives working alongside neighbourhood police teams.

And I have to say, and gave an example earlier, that I currently have a very good and proactive relationship with my neighbourhood sergeant and community police team at Stechford police station. But I don’t think that is the same for all Councillors, and I think it does vary according to individuals. And I’ll leave my good colleague Cllr Paul Tilsley to talk more about this and highlight some of these examples.

But the fact of the matter is, that Craig Guilford and Simon Foster have been successful in bidding to the Government for, and announced in April, 150 new police officers and 20 new community support officers across neighbourhood policing, to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour at a community level. And that, in line with the government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, every ward across the West Midlands will have a named police officer.

What I would question is how ‘every ward’ is defined. Certainly, in my ward of Yardley East, the neighbourhood police are still working to the former, pre-2018 boundary change ward of Yardley and Stechford North. But mind you so are the Council’s own street cleaning team – if you can believe that – so, perhaps we should get our own house in order first. But certainly, clarity on the named officer for every ward is needed. 

West Midlands Police has also set out its Ambition for Neighbourhood Policing in a report for the period 2023 to 2026, so I think it would be good to hear from the Chief Constable on the force’s progress along that journey. And indeed, the very first chapter in the Police and Crime Plan for 2025 - 2029 by the Commissioner Simon Foster is ‘rebuilding community policing’, and I would welcome a presentation on his approach for the next four years.     

Finally, on the last point in the Motion, we are calling on the leadership to articulate fully and at some pace how it intends to effectively devolve and improve the local delivery of services that most impact on our communities, whether that be street cleaning and fly-tipping, parking and planning enforcement or anti-social behaviour. But also, for a mature approach to the effective co-production of local service delivery with our partners, whether that be the police or voluntary sector, and our communities.