Gender equality charity calls new Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel councillor selection ‘very disappointing’
Following last month’s local elections, none of the ten councillors are female
An absence of female councillors on the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel is “disappointing”, the Fawcett Society has said.
Alesha De-Freitas, head of policy at the Fawcett Society, said: “It's very disappointing to see that an all-male panel has been appointed in this situation.
“But it’s not a surprise. Women are hugely underrepresented in local councils across the country, so when you put a random group together, with no thought for diversity, you end up with an all-male panel.”
Fawcett research has shown that, prior to the most recent elections, a whopping 95% of local councils in the UK were male dominated.
It has also shown that only 36% of councillors in local Government are female.
Alesha said: “Women representation is improving at a glacial pace, so we won't get to equal representation before 2050.
“And there are a number of reasons why women don't choose to become councillors, many of which are within the council’s reach to change, in making the job more compatible with caring responsibilities, offering parental leave, but also thinking about the tone of the debate and making sure that women are not excluded through misogynistic comments.”
The Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel challenges, scrutinises, and supports the county’s police and crime commissioner (PCC).
Alesha says that the importance of the role of the panel increases the need for it to be diverse.
She added: “It’s really important that panels are diverse because it pays dividends both in terms of the quality of decision-making and also people's trust in the democratic process and the ability to hold the police to account.
“We know that more diverse panels with different viewpoints do bring more scrutiny and more thought to different perspectives.”
The criteria for selection to the panel is set by the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel Arrangements, and appointments “as far as is practicable” must be politically balanced within and across the three councils.
Alesha said that, since they have already taken steps to ensure political representation, they should do it for equality too.
Alesha added: “Equality can be quite easily addressed by ensuring that you take steps to ensure representation for gender and ethnicity. The panel already ensures political representation, so it should be fairly straightforward to include it for gender and ethnicity as well.”
The Local Democracy Reporting Service approached all the political groups represented on the panel about the appointments.
They were asked if more should have been done across the three councils to ensure that there was a better representation of Bedfordshire’s residents on the panel.
A Bedford Borough Labour Group spokesperson said: “It is up to each of the political groups on the council to nominate members for each of the committees.
“In doing so, we have to consider the individual circumstances – work commitments, family commitments, access to their own or public transport (where meetings are held in various locations throughout Bedfordshire), dates and times of other committees or parish & town councils they may be on.
“Ideally of course there should be more representation of women on the Police & Crime Panel, and in previous years Bedford Borough Labour Group has been represented on the Police & Crime Panel by Colleen Atkins who was Vice Chair.”
A statement from the Bedford mayor’s office said: “Bedford’s Conservative group has a firm commitment to gender equality as evidenced by the makeup of our current administration’s Executive where 50% of the appointed positions are held by Women.
“The Police and Crime Panel had been offered to our female colleagues; however, they had chosen to focus on other commitments or priorities which are perfectly within their rights.
“We will always prioritise our councillors – regardless of race, sex and age – taking up positions they feel passionate about and would not force our councillors into responsibilities they are not comfortable with.
“For the Conservatives, Marc was chosen by all councillors unanimously because of his knowledge and expertise in this field and we are all confident he will do an incredible job.
“We cannot speak on other councils and parties however, we do understand the need for more accurate representation and for the council to reflect its surrounding communities.
“The current panel should have been more representative of our community and we would encourage all parties and council’s to look at assisting not just more women but also ethnic minorities into taking up positions to more accurately represent the cultural mix of our society.”
A spokesperson for Bedford Borough Liberal Democrats said: “We agree that representation should be improved and call on the councils to work on this together and look at co-opting members to improve the gender balance if necessary.”
The leader of Luton Borough Council, councillor Hazel Simmons (Labour) said: “Yes it is disappointing especially as for the last four years we have had two women on the Police and Crime Panel.
“We do a lot to keep a diverse and gender balance on most of our committees, for example we have 5/5 gender balance on our Executive.
“However, it was not possible this year on this committee. We will continue to review this over the course of the Administration.”
The leader of Central Bedfordshire Council, councillor Adam Zerny (Independent), said: “We agree with the Fawcett Society that it’s right women are proportionately represented in society.
“The Independent Group on Central Bedfordshire Council has a greater proportion of female councillors than any administration in the council’s history.
“We will continue our policy of nominating those councillors we feel are best, for each role.”
Councillor Shaun Roberts, leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Central Bedfordshire Council, said: “This is clearly not an acceptable situation.
“There should have been much greater discussion among Council Groups to achieve a better gender balance and all of us should hold our hands-up and accept fault.
“Going forward, I would like to see the crime panel using some form of system that guaranteed that each council had to nominate people from different genders.”
The remaining political groups across the three councils that have representatives on the panel did not respond by the time of publication.
The panel councillors are:
Bedford Borough – councillor Mohammed Nawaz (Labour), councillor Tim Caswell (LibDems) and councillor Marc Frost (Conservative)
Central Bedfordshire – councillor Gareth Mackey (Independent), councillor Patrick Hamill (Independent), councillor Steve Owen (LibDems) and councillor Blake Stephenson (Conservative)
Luton Borough – councillor Steve Moore (LibDems), councillor Ghulam Abbas (Labour) and councillor Basit Mahmood (Labour)