• Women make up just 21% of all members of the boards of Combined Authorities;
• Only one of the 95 members of these groups is a woman of colour;
• Some boards have as few as 1 in 10 female members;
• Not one of the eight ‘Metro Mayors’ are women.

The new report, ‘Including Women’s Voices’, is the result of two years spent working with women in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands to put gender onto the devolution agenda. It calls
for changes to get more women around the top table, while also highlighting the need to get the voices of ordinary women heard in policymaking. The report calls for each Metro Mayor to create
a permanent, resourced, and diverse Women’s Commission that can engage the grassroots and scrutinise policy decisions.

Gemma Rosenblatt, Fawcett Society Head of Policy and Campaigns, said: “Devolution is looking like old politics not new – with power in the hands of men. All eight ‘Metro Mayors’ are men. And men make up four-fifths of those at the top table. Devolution still presents an opportunity – but only if big changes are made to bring women in. If devolution fails to engage with half the population, it risks the success of the whole project.”

Fawcett’s report calls for:

• More to be done now to get women round the top table – councils should introduce opposite-gender assistant cabinet members so that more women are involved in key discussions – as has been done in Greater Manchester
• Government to change Combined Authority constitutions to require that they are gender equal Metro Mayors to create a diverse and sustainable Women’s Commission in each area to
  scrutinise policy
• Metro Mayors to use data to understand how policy affects women, including publishing high quality Equality Impact Assessments for policy decisions.

Download ‘Including Women’s Voices’.  Find out more about the project

This International Women’s Day falls in the centenary year of (some) women first getting the vote in general elections. But for decades before women had been both voting and even standing in local government elections, although sporadically, usually on the basis that they were the heads of wealthier households and as a result council ratepayers. The sister of Fawcett’s founder Millicent, the trailblazing doctor Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, was elected Mayor of Aldeburgh ten years before the 1918 law that recognised women’s right to the Parliamentary vote.

Despite that longer history of women’s voting rights, when it comes to women’s representation at local level the pace of change has been inexcusably slow – in fact Parliament has now caught up. We are at just a third women on our councils, and 32% in Westminster.

Supported by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, up to summer 2017, Fawcett and the LGiU ran a year-long commission to ask the question: “Does Local Government Work for Women?” Our answer was often an emphatic “no”. With just 4% of councils having a maternity policy for councillors; with sexist comments directed at 4 in 10 councillors by others within their party, and sexual harassment received by 10%; and with too little done to tackle a male-dominated working culture, it is clear things need to change.

Since the report was launched, we’ve made some steps towards altering this picture, and we’re carrying on our campaigning work on this. The parties are taking heed; councils from Wigan and Stockport to North Buckinghamshire have passed motions about the report and are taking action; and we are in discussions with the Government about what they can do to shift the structures that keep women out. Barrow Cadbury Trust’s support has enabled us to push sexism in our town halls up the agenda.

One of the most shocking findings of the Commission was that 94% of those holding a seat at the table of the new Combined Authorities were men. These are effectively the “cabinet” role for the new city regions across the country, from Greater Manchester to the Tees Valley – and in six of those regions they report to one of the entirely-male “metro mayors”.

These are brand new structures – and so it is shocking that no thought has been given to the gender makeup they would have when introduced. But while we continue to campaign for that to change, we can’t wait. We need women’s voices to be heard in the important policy discussions those Combined Authorities are having right now.

That’s why, supported by Barrow Cadbury Trust and by the Smallwood Trust, we are working with regional partners in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands to campaign for that to happen. We are bringing together diverse women in workshops over the next two months to hear what matters to them, to reflect on our research findings, and to campaign together for policy change. We want to show that there is another way for these new structures to ensure that they hear women’s voices and make decisions that reflect the impact that gender has on their lives. Find out more.

The findings are part of the Local Government Commission – a year-long study led by the Fawcett Society in partnership with the Local Government Information Unit, which is asking ‘Does Local Government Work for Women?’ The statistics released today are from the interim report, with a final report due in the summer. This will make recommendations on how to address the key issues faced by women councillors and the barriers to women’s representation in local government.

The Commission today, is also publishing new data on women’s representation in local government. The picture is one of very slow progress. Only 33% of elected local councillors in England are women, an increase of just five percentage points since 1997. Yet over the same period, the proportion of women in Parliament has increased by more than half, from 18% to 29%.

The Commission finds that slow progress is exacerbated by many councillors remaining in office for significant periods of time. In 2016 men were 1.6 times more likely to be long term incumbent than women. Of those who have been in office for 20 years or more, there were three men for every one woman. Although some seats change hands at every election this is a relatively small number and is never enough to create real change in the gender composition of local elected members.

The remit of Fawcett’s year-long Commission of experts has been to:

• Gather and publish evidence on female participation and representation across local government and identify the barriers to women’s representation.

• Make recommendations on how to advance women’s leadership in local government and establish a pipeline for power, including positive steps to support and inspire women to stand for elected office.

• Demonstrate the impact of decision-making at the local level for women’s lives.

• Reinvigorate the role of women in local government and encourage more women to stand and participate.

Read the full report.
Read the executive summary

The coalition – made up of The Fawcett Society, the Hansard Society, the Electoral Reform Society, the Centre for Women and Democracy, and Unlock Democracy – was formed in 2011 to address the lack of women in politics.  They believe the under-representation of women in Westminster, the devolved assemblies, and town halls around the UK represents a democratic deficit which undermines the legitimacy of decisions made in Parliament.  Their aim is to ensure women have an equal presence and voice within our democratic system. The report found that:

• The 2015 General Election presents the next big opportunity for all parties to make progress.  Fielding women in target and retirement seats is the most reliable way of achieving this.
• The Labour Party are leading the way with women making up 53.5% of those fielded in target and retirement seats.  The Liberal Democrat Party comes next with 40.5% and the Conservative Party is lagging behind on 34.5%.

In terms of current levels of women’s representation in national politics, women currently comprise only:

• 22% of Cabinet Ministers
• 23% of MPs
• 23% of Members of the House of Lords

Women are also seriously under-represented in local government, particularly in leadership roles.  Only 13.1% of local government leaders are women – a 3.5% decline since 2004. And Britain is falling down the global league tables.  When it comes to women’s representation in politics, we have slipped dramatically from 33rd place in 2001, and 62nd place in 2010, to 65th in 2014. The report’s key recommendations are that:

• All political parties should take (or continue to take) immediate action to increase the number of women candidates at all levels of election, using positive action if necessary.
• Election authorities should use monitoring forms so that we can get a much better understanding of who is (and isn’t) standing for election in our democracy.
• The media should ensure that their coverage of political issues includes women and their views, treats all contributors with the dignity and respect to which they are entitled, and accords with the Code of Conduct published by the National Union of Journalists.