2021 Manifesto FINAL DRAFT - Flipbook - Page 11
Democracy
In spite of this, central
government pushed through the
establishment of the WMCA
without the public having any real
say in the matter. While residents
in both Birmingham and Coventry
voted against having a mayor in
2012, central government forced
local authorities to impose a
mayor with the power to raise
taxes on those very same citizens.
Nearly five years have passed
since the WMCA’s creation, and
many residents in the West
Midlands still have little idea what
the West Midlands Mayor does or
how decisions are made. The
Mayor is head of a system that
has no connection with the
average person.
Things are different in London.
When Londoners vote for their
mayor, they also vote for 25
London Assembly Members to
scrutinise and hold the mayor to
account all year round. The West
Midlands has no such Assembly.
Instead, an unelected scrutiny
committee, colleagues of the
councillors making up the WMCA
board, meets a few times a year.
Apart from Labour and
Conservative members, the Board
and the scrutiny committee
contain no other party
representatives or independent
voices.
As well as being unelected, the
WMCA board does not represent
the diverse West Midlands
population. Of the board members
eligible to vote, there is no BAME
community representation and
only 3 out of 11 members are
women. This makes a mockery of
the WMCA’s Inclusive Leadership
Pledge. Even committees in the
House of Lords and House of
Commons strongly criticised how
the WMCA was set up and the
lack of transparency and
accountability.
In the original devolution
agreement, “democracy” doesn’t
feature, with “democratic” only
getting one mention. The
Strategic Economic Plan mentions
“business” over 180 times, but
never once “service users”,
“public participation”,
“democracy” or “community
organisations”.