Ealing Council must become more open so that everyone who lives or works in the area can see why things happen and can get involved. Many things need changing.
We will campaign to change the method by which our local councillors are elected. This will mean that people whose views are currently unrepresented will have their own councillors. It is neither democratic nor fair that Labour should have 75% of Ealing's councillors with only 50% of the votes. A respresentative number of councillors should come from each party. So people’s votes will count for much more and councillors will be forced to listen more to local residents.
The recently-established area committees (for Acton, Ealing, Greenford, Hanwell, Perivale, Northolt and Southall) will have a wider remit, to include licensing and some planning applications. Area committees will have larger budgets and thus be able to make more decisions for the people they represent.
We will ask local residents for their views in an annual form which will be delivered with the council’s newspaper and via the council's website. A FREEPOST address may be used to encourage people to respond and this will allow us to understand people’s priorities and how they may change from year to year.
We will create a series of one-stop shops around the borough‚ where local residents can ask and get answers and information about issues, under one roof. This would include a citizens advice bureau, legal issues, job seeking, electoral registration, utilities (gas, electricity etc), housing, benefits, transport information, sporting facilities.
We will make sure that the council web site is more user-friendly and contains more information about meetings and Ealing in general in a more accessible format than currently.
Cabinet scrutiny will take place before decisions are finalised instead of after the cabinet have made decisions.
Scrutiny committees will be more wide-ranging and allow a wider range of people (including residents and even people from out of the borough) to give evidence to help councillors make decisions correctly.
While we are opposed to having an elected executive mayor since we do not believe that one person can adequately reflect the different geographical communities of Ealing, we believe that residents should decide whether Ealing should have an elected executive mayor in a referendum. The results of the council’s consultation were very close, so this is best for democracy.
Next section: Consultation >>>
Published by Martin Tod on behalf of Ealing Liberal Democrats all at 23 Fairlawn Court, Acton Lane, London W4 5EE. Printed and hosted by freenetname, 113 - 123 Upper Richmond Road, London SW15 2TL