ABOUT
Throughout the sector, there are growing concerns about the impact bullying, harassment, and intimidation are having on local (parish and town) councils, councillors, clerks and council staff and the resulting effectiveness of local councils.
The National Association of Local Councils (NALC), One Voice Wales, the Society of Local Council Clerks (SLCC) and county associations have responded to this by setting up a Civility and Respect Working Group to oversee the Civility and Respect Project.
CIVILITY AND RESPECT PLEDGE
NALC, SLCC, and OVW believe now is the time to put civility and respect at the top of the agenda and start a culture change for the local council sector.
The Civility and Respect Pledge is being introduced because there is no place for bullying, harassment and intimidation within our sector. The pledge is easy for councils to sign up for and it will enable councils to demonstrate that they are committed to standing up to poor behaviour across our sector and to driving through positive changes which support civil and respectful conduct.
We invite all councils to take the Civility and Respect Pledge.
MISSION STATEMENT
Civility and respect should be at the heart of public life, and good governance is fundamental to ensuring an effective and well-functioning democracy at all levels.
The intimidation, abuse, bullying and harassment of councillors, clerks and council staff, in person or online, is unacceptable, whether by councillors, clerks, council staff, or public members.
This can prevent councils from functioning effectively, councillors from representing local people, discourage people from getting involved, including standing for election, and undermine public confidence and trust in local democracy.
NALC, county associations and OVW, as the membership organisations representing the first tier of local government in England and Wales, and the SLCC, as the professional body for clerks, are committed to working together to promote civility and respect in public life, good governance, positive debate and supporting the well-being of councillors, professional officers and staff.
To that end, the Civility and Respect Working Group will be working to deliver tangible resources, actions and interventions in four main areas: providing councils with the tools to support good governance; lobbying to strengthen the standards regime and encouraging more people to get involved; training; and processes to intervene to provide support to struggling councils.
PROJECT WORKSTREAMS
The group has identified a significant number of changes and improvements considered vital to provide support to help reduce and manage the issues related to bullying and harassment in the sector. These factors have been organised into six project workstreams that will deliver on the mission statement.
RESOURCES
Civility and Respect Continuum
The Civility and Respect Continuum illustrates how issues escalate over time. Our research has indicated that councils experiencing poor conduct or vexatious demands/complaints often experience problems repeatedly over a significant period of time. The longer an issue is permitted to continue, unaddressed, the more complex, time-consuming, and expensive the resolution becomes. This can eventually result in damage to the reputation of the council and health issues for those involved eventually ending with multiple resignations of both staff and councillors. Councils that have up-to-date policies and procedures, well-trained councillors and employees can often manage and mediate issues with or without advice and support from county associations and/or monitoring officers. Where councils become overwhelmed or fail to draw upon the resources available, matters can escalate and come under significant strain and pressure. In these situations, the solutions are often beyond the existing support offered and invariably best resolved by third parties, a costly and time-consuming challenge.
The project is identifying solutions to support councillors, officers, councils, and county officers at every stage of the civility continuum, however, whilst governance and training solutions may help with minor and moderate issues, the options for support at the major end of the scale become more limited. Support from monitoring officers and county associations may provide resolution in some instances but often issues have become too complex to resolve without costly interventions from specialist third parties. Every attempt should be made to prevent escalation by addressing potential behavioural issues as soon as they arise, calling out bullying and harassment at the earliest opportunity and standing up for civil and respectful behaviour.
If the issues within a council have escalated to critical, then the options for resolution are still further limited, with costly external resolution and legal support often being required to reach resolutions. Potential action/intervention at this stage is being piloted with a town council struggling with chronic issues. It is being overseen by the joint NALC/SLCC Internal Development Board. If the solution proves successful it may be possible to expand the support programme but much depends on the councils' willingness to make a positive change. Early intervention to head off chronic issues is a far more effective mechanism to handle poor behaviour.
Social media guide
Social media is a simple, quick and effective way of communicating. It allows a user to reach whole communities at the click of a button, which is perfect for community engagement. Councils and councillors can constructively engage with communities rather than simply broadcasting information. But unfortunately, in a small number of cases, councillors and councils can experience online abuse. Social media can become where individuals resort to abusive behaviour, such as aggressive language, threats, trolling and bullying. Building up your following on social media is harder if a small number of angry voices dominate.
The project team has collaborated with Breakthrough Communications to develop a new guide to social media for councils, officers and councillors to actively address the issues of civility and respect on social media. It is designed to guide you through the challenges of social media for local councils, from handling trolling to legitimate challenge and scrutiny, from smear campaigns to politics. The guide will help you use positive language to tone to shape engagement and the conversation, to find common ground and engage with various views.
There is also help on escalating issues, deleting and moderating comments, blocking abusive users, reporting online abuse and legal matters to the police or social media platforms and deciding when it is time to get off social media.
Read the social media guide