Sheffield for Democracy - Latest Comments

Re: FPTP delivers an enlarged majority for Labour in Sheffield… at the cost of voter representation

Ntf10@yahoo.co.uk — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:12:39 -0000

An excellent article, but I think the situation is even more alarming than that one party gets 75% of the seats from 47% of the voters. 67% of Sheffield's electorate did not vote at all according to the City Council's website.
I would add a further comment based on my own experience. I wonder how many of those 47% of the 32.77% who voted actually knew what they were voting for? My efforts to get a copy of the Labour Party's manifesto proved unsuccessful, not even a brief summary. Yet some opponents of the idea of a Mayor for Sheffield were heard to say it would be like buying a pig in a poke!

Re: Sheffield Star to host Elected Mayor debate – Monday 29th April

Paulw — Wed, 02 May 2012 11:24:17 -0000

A definate NO vote for me , no idea of cost , no idea of candidates , no idea of how the City will be run how can anyone vote for this

Re: Contact Us

Richard Shaw — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 17:55:46 -0000

Hello Anna,

Thank you for contacting us. 'Sheffield for Democracy' has decided to remain a neutral party in the debate over whether Sheffield or other cities should have an elected mayor and that we should act as a neutral platform for discussion. We invite contributions in the form of comments or guest blog posts on the subject and have blog posts with links to those Yes or No campaign websites that we are currently aware of.

I have circulated your question to our steering group members for their thoughts and may be in touch again if they have anything further to add.

Regards,

Richard Shaw,
Webmaster, Sheffield for Democracy

Re: Contact Us

Anna Burdal — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 05:32:23 -0000

Dear all,

I am currently writing an article about the mayoral elections in May and I recently came over this site. What is your view on having a directly elected mayor? Do you think having a directly elected mayor will change Sheffield in any way? If yes/no, how?

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Best Regards
Anna Burdal
Journalism Department, The University of Sheffield.

Re: Should Sheffield have an Elected Mayor?

Richard Shaw — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:36:26 -0000

Hello, Yes the rules regarding the formation of cabinets appear to be the same. The difference between the two systems seems to be whether you want the person in charge of the council to be like a President or like a Prime Minister.

Currently the Leader is an elected Councillor who represents constituents in their ward and is chosen by an assembly of fellow councillors. They will generally be someone who has lots of Council experience and who has sufficient leadership qualities to gain the support of their peers. This is similar to the Prime Minister who is both a constituency MP and the leader of the government. In this model council power ultimately resides with the assembly of elected councillors who make decisions and choose their leader.

An elected Mayor would not necessarily already be an elected Councillor or even be a member of a political party - there have already been several independent elected mayors around the country. They may or may not have experience of running a council. They and the people they appoint to their cabinet are responsible for making decisions - most power is moved from the assembly of elected councillors to the Mayor and his Cabinet. This is similar to a Presidential model of government where the President only has to defer to the assembly on certain decisions but has quite a lot of freedom to do as they want.

Both models have pros and cons. If you have a council in which their is an democratically unhealthy culture or even corruption then having an elected Mayor who bypasses the usual political party power structures, sort things out and help restore trust in the council could be a good thing. However it does centralise a lot of power in fewer individuals in comparison to the Leader model where power resides with the elected councillors and their electors.

I believe decision making should be as decentralised as possible and that having power shared among the councillors is ultimately more democratic than concentrating it in a few cabinet members. I think that an elected mayor would be great for places which have had previous problems with corruption or poor decision making but I don't think Sheffield is one of those places.

Re: Should Sheffield have an Elected Mayor?

Botanic88 — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:39:16 -0000

Looking at the 'Use Your Vote' leaflet it appears that the only difference between the two options is that ordinary voters elect a mayor who cannot be removed for 4 years. Whereas councillors elect a Leader who they can remove by a vote of confidence.

Apart from this, the rules about cabinets, etc appear to be identical. Are we missing something?

Re: Contact Us

Richard Shaw — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:40:18 -0000

Hello Samuel,

Thank you very much for commenting and the interesting infographic! I have passed your comment and picture onto Vicky Seddon our group coordinator and we'll be in touch soon.

Richard

Re: Should Sheffield have an Elected Mayor?

Richard Shaw — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:36:13 -0000

Hello Ian, I believe it will be anyone who is registered to vote in the Sheffield City Council area. This will probably include students who are registered to vote both at university and at their home address.

Re: Contact Us

Ara09sk — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:28:27 -0000

Good Evening,

I'm Samuel, a local student from the University of Sheffield School of Architecture and I am very intererested in transparency within local council information and how the public of Sheffield relate to this. I have attatched a survey that I carried out with a panel of 20 locals in the Central Community Assembly with regards to the Community Assembly Action plan that has been recently released. I'd be pleased if you would let me know what you think,

Kind Regards
Samuel
University of Sheffield
School of Architecture

Re: Should Sheffield have an Elected Mayor?

Ian James Kay — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 04:28:03 -0000

Who gets to vote? Is it just people who live in the Sheffield council area?

Re: The future of Community Assemblies

Neil Fitzmaurice — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:42:07 -0000

I largely agree with this. Though our experience in the South West should have been different if it was just a party political issue. Our councillors (up to May) were all LibDems and we were also told the story that public meetings were council meetings held in public. I think the resisitance has been more deep seated. Officers simply don't like dealing with community participation or don't know how to do it. Political parties want to take the credit for everything positive. We seem to be left with the situation we've always had - that the only way communities will gain more say is by insisting from the grass roots.

Re: The future of Community Assemblies

Mick Ibbotson — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:40:12 -0000

Community Assemblies are principally a good idea but have been hijacked by people and officers wanting them to fail in my opinion. As they were introduced by the Liberals there was never any way the Labour councillors in the North East of the city were going to make them work - as a result people in the NE have given up - as Pete Price - chair of the assembly says 'these are council meetings held in public not public meetings' so showing his intention not to actually involve the community in any meaningful dialogue unless its politically advantageous to him and his 'red' army of the North.

Re: The Problems with First Past The Post

jaystar — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:38:59 -0000

I liked the FPTP animal video. I am sure that the best strategy for electoral reformers is to attack FPTP – it is a rotten undemocratic system.
Nor is it the best of a lot of alternative electoral systems, but I fear that arguing the case for STV will not strengthen the case against FPTP. If anything it will confuse things, and split electoral reformers.

Another PR electoral system, DPR Voting, does allow single member constituency boundaries to follow the boundaries of natural communities. The system is resistant to gerrymandering. It is also much fairer because each vote in every constituency makes a difference to the result of the election.

The introduction of DPR Voting would involve only the smallest change to our current electoral system. It would preserve the relationship between MPs and their constituents on the basis of a method of constituency election which is familiar. DPR Voting would achieve greater equality for the voter, greater voter choice, and a significant increase in proportionality at minimum cost and disruption.
http://www.dprvoting.org