Cllr Bridget Smith, Vice-Chair, DCN; Leader, South Cambridgeshire District Council: "We need to ask why gender parity eludes councils."
2024 holds several important anniversaries for local government, not just the 50th birthday of the modern district council. Another significant milestone has so far received little recognition – 130 years of a woman’s right to stand as a district councillor.
The 1894 Local Government Act enshrined the right of women to stand as councillors on district councils – the late-Victorian versions of district councils – and enabled some women to vote in their elections.
The decades that preceded and followed were dominated by the powerful struggle for a woman’s right to stand and vote. These rights were hard won and courageously fought for.
“Courage calls to courage everywhere,” as Millicent Fawcett’s statue in Parliament Square reads.
Courage remains an apt word. There’s no doubt it takes courage to choose to stand and become a councillor – to put yourself forward for external scrutiny, critique and public criticism, and to devote days, evenings and weekends to attending council meetings, holding surgeries, meeting with residents and campaigning. Having your face emblazoned on campaign literature that goes through the door of your all neighbours and friends also takes some getting used to!
But being a councillor is not only a privilege, it is one of the most rewarding vocations: our work transforms lives. This results in families being safely housed, refugees being protected and integrated into our communities and residents who are elderly and people with disabilities enabled to live independently in their own homes through adaptations. District councils help shape communities and places – we regenerate areas, build the homes people need, provide parks and green spaces, protect local heritage and lead the drive to net zero locally.
In South Cambridgeshire we are just embarking on a joint venture that will deliver 38 new council homes built to Passivhaus standards, meaning that not only are they good for the environment but also good for people’s pockets as they will be considerably cheaper to run. We have also given communities just under £500,000 in recent years to help their own local drive to zero carbon. This transformation takes courage, but it brings results that make me proud to be a councillor.
At local level, you see the impact of your decisions directly with an immediacy which is often lost at national decision-making level. Your neighbours and communities also have the relationships with you to tell you exactly what they think about the decisions you have made – the good, the bad and the ugly. They tell you frankly what is working and what is not. This makes policy making stronger and interventions more effective.
As one of the minority of district leaders who is a woman, I am very conscious of the fact that I owe my place to the courage of those men and women 130 years ago who made the powerful case for equality.
It’s a sad reality that as yet, few councils have achieved full gender parity with complete 50:50 representation, although we may hope that things move in the right direction on 2 May. There are some positive signs, however, the number of women councillors has increased (it’s now 36% on districts), but we have much further to go. As we mark 130 years of the right to stand, we must ask ourselves (as officers and councillors, as political parties, councils and local government organisations), the challenging question – why is it that so many women are still choosing not to?