A Women’s Guide to Making Change Locally

By Kat BH

Who decides whether the streetlights on your walk home stay on? Whether the refuge in your town keeps its funding and provides single-sex care? Whether there’s a safe, well-lit bus stop near the community centre, or if there’s enough childcare for parents who work shifts?

Your council does. And very often, that council is short of women.

I know this because I used to work in local government. I spent years managing policy, equalities and scrutiny departments within a borough council and I saw first-hand how decisions really get made – in committee rooms, in officer reports and in budget meetings that most residents don’t hear about. I also saw that when women are in the room, and speak up on the issues they care about, things can and do change. The impact on carers, mothers and survivors gets noticed, allowing the discussion to include issues that affect women, which may otherwise be overlooked.

It is impressive to see how female parish and borough councillors across the UK have successfully translated their personal experiences via political platforms into direct, actionable policies that protect and empower women and girls. One councillor who made a particular impression on me for her tenacity to get things done, worked to relaunch the borough’s Women’s Safety Charter and rolled out an early-intervention safety education programme across local schools after being appalled at the stories she heard from  her daughter and daughter’s friends.

There are so many areas in which women leaders can and do make a difference but from the outside, local government can feel distant, technical and a bit intimidating. It’s full to the brim with jargon, committees and processes that often seem opaque and as though they are purposely designed to keep everyday people out.

In an attempt to battle the bafflement, I’m delighted to be able to introduce FiLiA’s latest Campaigner’s Toolkits to help demystify local politics: How to Become a Local Councillor and How Local Government Works. There are separate versions of each for England, Scotland and Wales, because each nation does things a little differently.

The Easiest Way In? Your Parish Council

If you’re interested in making a difference, my advice is stay close to home. Parish and town councils in England (community councils in Wales) are the most local tier of government, looking after the places and spaces right on your doorstep. In Scotland, community councils play a similar role as the local voice of their neighbourhood, and they get a say on things like planning and licensing. Lots of them are crying out for new people and it's really not hard to get involved. For a start, you may not even need to fight an election. Lots of parish seats are filled without a vote, simply because there are fewer candidates than seats. And if a seat is sitting empty, you can ask to be co-opted, which usually just means writing a short letter to the clerk explaining why you’d like to serve, and if the council votes you in – boom, you’re a parish councillor!

You can stand if you:

  • live or work in the area,

  • own or rent property there, or

  • live within three miles of it.

And you certainly don’t need to belong to a political party. Plenty of parish councillors are independents who simply care about where they live. (Things work a little differently in Scotland and Wales, so please check the specific toolkit for your nation.)

You Don’t Need a Seat to Have a Say

Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, ‘That’s great, but I don’t want to be a councillor’, and that’s fair enough! Some of the most effective voices I came across in local government were women who never sat in the chamber at all, they just knew when and where to speak up.

Local democracy really is far more open than most people realise. Councils have to hold their meetings in public and publish the papers, open up their accounts for scrutiny and listen to residents – whether through forums, consultations or meeting their councillors. What is less publicised is that they are in desperate need of women with local knowledge and lived experience. Women like you.

Scrutiny committees are often on the lookout for issues to investigate and they love co-opting onto their work programmes people who have a passion about the area being explored. A well-timed email from a resident can genuinely put something on the agenda. The working group will delve into the topic and then a report will be written with recommendations to improve council services. It’s hugely satisfying and one way to work towards change.

The How Local Government Works toolkits show you how to:

  • work out who really holds the power at your council and when the big decisions are due,

  • submit a public question or speak at a meeting, 

  • ask to see the equality impact assessment – and challenge it if women have been left out, and

  • use your right to inspect the council’s accounts, so you can follow the money.

Once you know how the system works, it’s easier to find exactly where to push.

Let’s Move Paper Equality to Actual Equality

We know that women use council services more than men and we’re usually the first to feel it when budgets get cut. When councils make decisions without us, women’s needs are far more likely to be overlooked. I’ve seen budgets quietly get trimmed, and too many equality impact assessments that hit my desk that had given no thought or consideration as to how women might be affected.

Since 2011, every council has had a legal duty within the Equality Act, called the Public Sector Equality Duty, to actively consider how its decisions affect women. Last year, my colleague Cheryl and I set out to test whether councils are actually doing what they’re supposed to.

We dug through the websites of 17 councils across the cities where FiLiA has either held conferences or will do in future (Bradford, Brighton, Cardiff, Glasgow, Portsmouth, Blackpool and the Greater Manchester authorities). We looked at their equality strategies, their equality impact assessments, the data they use and whether they actually talk to women’s organisations. Where we couldn’t find what we needed, we sent in Freedom of Information requests.

It probably won’t come as a surprise that it made for pretty grim reading:

  • Only three of the 17 councils explicitly mentioned women in their equality objectives.

  • Only three clearly published data broken down by sex.

  • Fewer than half showed any sign of consulting women’s organisations at all.

We repeatedly found the same pattern: the strategies, assessments and panels all exist on paper, but they’re not translating into enough real thought about women’s lives because the questions aren’t being asked. Impact assessments were labelling decisions ‘gender-neutral’ when the evidence clearly said otherwise, and in several places sex was muddled up with gender identity, which hides the very sex-based inequalities the law is there to tackle.

There were bright spots – Cardiff, Glasgow and Tameside stood out for stronger practice – but they were the exception. I’m not trying to depress you here, I’m telling you because it shows exactly why women’s voices are needed in these spaces. If the people making and checking decisions aren’t assessing the effect on women, then women need to step in and ensure those questions are asked and acted on. The Equality Duty is there to give you the leverage to make them listen. You can read our full report here and use it as a template to start asking questions of your own council.

Can I Really Do This?

Yes, you can. Honestly. You don’t need to be an expert, a lawyer or a political insider. Most of the councillors I worked with didn’t start out as any of those things. They just cared about where they lived, asked good questions and kept going.

Every woman who has ever stood up in a council meeting, written a letter of interest or asked ‘Has anyone thought about how this affects women?’ started exactly where you are now. The How to Become a Local Councillor and How Local Government Works toolkits were created so you can take it one step at a time and take that first step with confidence.

If I’ve learnt anything about how to last in politics (and life) it’s to bring a friend with you. It’s so much easier to walk into your first meeting with someone you trust beside you. And it’s clear that women who go in together support each other, stay longer and get more done.

Download the toolkits:

And if you’d like some company along the way, come and join us at the FiLiA Women’s Assembly – a network of women who are informed, connected and are taking action in their communities. We’d love to see you there.

Remember, you don’t have to do this alone and that your community needs more women like you. You have a lifetime of experience to share, draw on and use to help improve the lives of others around you. So go on, take your seat at the table or stand up and demand to be heard: either way, it may be the best thing you do this year!

MICHELLE KERWINGovernment Policy, Sex-based Rights