In Defence of Councillors

Abstract

The book explores the changing nature of the roles powers, tasks, functions, expectations and challenges of the office of councillor and those that are elected to that office. Based on detailed and long-term research among councillors it examines the contribution the office makes to the governance of the nation and the role councillors play in bringing legitimacy and accountability to unelected governance networks. It examines, in detail, the work councillors conduct within their councils and communities and how being a councillor influences and affects all facets of their life. The book explores the strategies councillors devise to take political action, energise political change and deal with the limitations on their office, to effectively govern their localities. Through an analysis of important inquires and commissions that have investigated the office of councillor, the book examines the tendency of government to re-shape and re-structure the office to suit its own policy requirements or visions of the purpose of local government and of councillors. The book examines the affects of the constancy of change on the work councillors conduct and the roles they play in the government of communities and the country. The book sets out ways in which local government and the office of councillor could be strengthened within the overall governing framework to construct a localised state that offers maximum diversity of local policy and politics. The book recognises and celebrates the contribution councillors make to their communities, councils and to the quality of local and national democracy.