J.G.Harston
							70 Camm Street
							Walkley
							Sheffield
							S6 3TR
							jgh@arcade.demon.co.uk
	
		Hazel Blears MP
		House of Commons
		LONDON
		SW1 1AA
	
							22nd June 2008
	
		RE: Local Government and Involvement in Health Act 2007
	
	
	Last summer while this Act was going through the committee
	stage I tried emailing various people with concerns about one
	section of it. I tried emailing you, I tried emailing the
	chair of the committee scruitinising the Bill, I tried
	emailing opposition frontbenchers. These emails seem to have
	vanished into the ether as I had no response to any of them. I
	have ended up, after 23 years of using email, resorting to
	putting a letter in the post.
	
	In Chapter 1 in discussing the ability for a local council to
	move from a scheme of partial elections to whole-council
	elections, part 34 states:
	
	(5) In this section, "election year" means:
	(a) in relation to a metropolitan district council: 2010 and
	every fourth year afterwards;
	(b) in relation to a non-metropolitan council: 2011 and every
	fouth year afterwards.
	
	However, metropolitan councils that have parish councils have
	all-up parish elections in 2011 and every subsequent fourth
	year. If a metropolitan opted to move to all-up elections,
	they would have an all-up for the district council in 2010,
	and then another all-up for the parishes in 2011.
	Additionally, non-met councils and shire districts tend to
	have all-up elections in 2010.
	
	As part of the rational for a council to move to all-up
	elections is to reduce the unneccesary frequency of elections
	and reuce public confusion over different elections happening
	at different years in different parts of the country, forcing
	metropolitan councils to have elections staggered from the
	parish elections in their areas is a mistake.
	
	The 2004 Electoral Commission Report on electoral cycles
	recommended:
	
	(1) "The Commission recommends that the cycle of local and sub
	national government elections in England should follow a clear
	and consistent pattern, within and across local authorities. 
	Individual authorities should not be permitted to "opt out" of
	this pattern, and any newly created authorities should also
	follow the same pattern.
	
	(2) The Commission recommends that each local authority in
	England should hold whole council elections, with all
	councillors elected simultaneously, every four years.
	
	(3) The Commission recommends that all local government
	electors in England should elect members of their district,
	metropolitan borough, London borough or unitary council
	simultaneously once every four years.  Two years later, in the
	mid point of the electoral cycle, electors in areas with
	county councils, city wide authorities or any future sub
	national government should elect representatives to those
	bodies."
	
	Either paragraph (5) should have been removed entirely -
	leaving it up to the council to determine their four-yearly
	cycle - or (my preference) it should specify both mets and
	non-mets running on a cycle from 2011, not 2010.
	
	Can I urge you strongly to modify or remove paragraph (5) in
	any future Bill that gives you this opportunity.
	
	
	Yours
	
	
	
	
	J.G.Harston
	Councillor for Walkley Ward, Sheffield City Council