Will the Cabinet Secretary provide a breakdown of the policies, actions and funding set aside to increase awareness of and participation in the election of community councillors in Wales in the years 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016?
The Local Government (Democracy) (Wales) Act 2013 required community and town councils to make available certain information electronically – including how to contact them, information about each of their members, the minutes of their meetings and, so far as reasonably practicable, documents referred to at those meetings. They must also publish their annual audited accounts electronically.
The intention is to make it easier for the public to be able to find information about council activities and be able to easily contact elected members or clerks of community councils.
In March 2013, Welsh Ministers released £1.25 million of funding to county and county borough councils to support local democracy and public engagement. This included funding to assist community and town councils in the development of websites. Each principal council received £500 multiplied by the number of community and town councils within their area for this purpose.
Between October 2014 and March 2017 the Welsh Government ran a Democracy in Diversity programme and provided £50k over a two year period to support a mentoring programme, a publicity campaign, an employer programme, and consultation with political parties in their role of selecting candidates to stand in elections.
One Voice Wales participated in the Diversity in Democracy steering group. Community and town councils were not directly targeted in the diversity campaign but the campaign activities aimed to raise awareness across all tiers of local government.