Tell The People
| Author | ROBERT BAYLISS |
| Date | 01 March 1958 |
| Published date | 01 March 1958 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1958.tb01333.x |
Tell
The People
By ROBERT BAYLISS
Local Authorities are said to be close to the people. But do
councillors
take enough
or
any trouble to tell the people what they are
doing
and
The answer
is
No,
says
Mr.
Bayliss,
a
former local government
officer and
now
a schoolmaster, speaking from experience.
NTIL
recently
I
lived in a village at the extreme north of a large county.
U
There was a Parish Council, and the names of the councillors were
displayed in the post office.
No
other news
of
its activities ever reached
us. The Rural District Council seemed quite efficient
:
its rate demand
contained the usual mass of statistics
on
the back-quite incomprehensible
to the average villager. The money was collected by a cheerfiul woman
on
a bicycle
:
what a pity the council never thought
of
distributing leaflets
to
all
of
us
through the collector, explaining why main drainage had not
arrived, or why dustbins were only emptied every fortnight. While
I
lived
in the village a number of important events occurred: the county library
provided a travelling van. The senior pupils
in
the school were moved
to
a new and splendid secondary school nearby. Several of our roads and
pavements were improved.
It
would have been quite easy-and cheap-
for the County Council to have used the local school, the travelling library,
and its numerous highways department lorries to give at least some
of
the
facts about the activities of the council. Our county town was
40
miles
away: the newspapers circulating in the village had
no
county news-
most
of
the contents concerned the neighbouring county, four miles away.
No news was given presumably because
no
one had ever thought
it
was
necessary to give any.
I
now live in a thriving and growing borough in the Midlands-population
nearly
40,000.
Its handbook is glossy and illustrated, and includes historical
and topographical information.
It
does not, surprisingly, include a list
of
councillors, aldermen and officers
:
the map
is
a good one, but shows neither
borough nor ward boundaries. There is nothing about rates. The council
offices are divided between the town hall, in the centre of the town, and a
large house in a nearby park. Glass-covered boards outside the town hall
contain posters about flower shows, wrestling and dances-and, at the time
of
writing, a small county health notice.
I
have never seen a poster anywhere
about the council or its activities.
The critic may dismiss
all
this.
In a small town, he may say, notices
and posters are not necessary. Everybody knows where the council offices
are: old Bill
X
has been mayor twice: Councillor
Z
runs
the furniture
shop across the road. Is
it
certain that the man in the street knows all about
local affairs
?
A
slight enquiry
I
made in a small and compact Lincolnshire
town about local elections indicated that the lack
of
knowledge about council
candidates may be surprisingly common even amongst residents
of
long
standing.
The county
in
which
I
now
live publishes a handbook. This contains a
dozen pages
of
detailed information about council services and finance.
,
why
?
83
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