High Peak Liberal Democrats

More carrot, less stick in improving diversity

I'm generally supportive of the diversity motion introducing all women shortlists (AWS) at the next federal conference in York, (this argument is particularly persuasive), but will AWS permanently solve the problem of our party being too male and pale? If the proposals are passed and are successful, we might look in the Westminster bubble like we have addressed the gender disparity, however, as a party that relies on its local activists and councillors we ought to embed this cultural change more broadly. As Mark Pack has pointed out, we don't have enough women councillors, council candidates and local party officers (all about a third of total). And, as noted in one of the reports to conference, the percentage of female approved candidates is 27%.

The motion doesn't address this except to say-

Conference acknowledges that:

d) Proposals will be coming forward on wider party diversity, including in party structures and local government, as part of the Federal Executive-led Governance Review to the Autumn Federal Conference

So how might we go about this? Wouldn't it be more in keeping with our values for change to be encouraged with more carrot than forced upon us with bureaucratic stick? There are plans being developed in the English party relating to a small extra line of expenditure in the 2016 budget called 'Access to Activism' that aims at "addressing concerns about the increasing barriers facing new and potential activists in terms of both diversity and financial resources". For me it would make sense to disburse these funds in much the same way as the G8 small grants have been handled by ALDC. A small cash boost to campaigning funds in target wards with female/BME candidates could do a lot in encouraging local parties to address diversity. Why not use systems already in place? This approach could be used to engage other under-represented groups that can't be exclusively shortlisted like with AWS due to legislation, and wouldn't necessarily exclude white men as many wards elect two or more councillors. And raising awareness of ALDC amongst new activists is also no bad thing.

We could be more radical and use another extant incentive scheme to encourage local parties. The increased membership rebates to growing local parties has been incredibly successful and it should be possible to give a local party a greater percentage of membership fees if, for example, 50% of their exec is female or BME, or if 50% of their local council candidates are female or BME. My experience of local parties is that they're perfectly happy to have greater diversity, but spend much more time talking about campaigning (or the latest political gossip), and things, more or less, remain the same. We need to encourage local parties to look beyond the usual suspects for candidates and exec members, and a small financial incentive may bring about a significant increase in action.

I appreciate party finances are under pressure, but if we think this issue is important enough to introduce all women shortlists then surely it is important enough to move some funds around. Time to put our money where our mouth is?

* Tad Jones is a Liberal Democrat member in Nottingham and a member of ALDES. He writes in a personal capacity.

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