Bury Council has (due to the last Government) been forced to adopt a “Strong leader” model of Government.

Ostensibly in practice what this means is that instead of the council having an “Executive” made up of 8/9 councillors as previously and making decisions collectively, the Leader of the Council makes the decisions or delegates to a cabinet member responsible for a particular portfolio.

Whilst this is great for the leader of the council and may even speed up decision making, I’m not sure it exactly enhances democracy and accountability to local people.

The problem is that the democratically accountable element of the council now boils down to 6 councillors – leaving 45 councillors wondering how they can effectively represent their constituents views in the decision making process.

That situation is further aggravated by last years decision by the Tories locally to limit questions from Councillors at meetings.

Meanwhile at the other end of the spectrum residents still rightly expect Councillors to be standing up for their concernes at every opportunity. So we are left with a massive democracy gap in the middle.

Last weeks Lib Dem motion proposing the Tory administration at Bury deals with future cuts in as inclusive and engaging manner as possible sought to flag up this issue.

Lets face it no one wants to make cuts , or have to administer them on behalf of the Government, but the more local people understand the rationale, the more the decision making process and options are explained, the more likely that people will either understand or even accept that what is proposed is the best way forward.

Failure to engage local people at such times, faced with big cuts to services would amount to rubbing salt into the wounds. And lets face it local people will often readily influence the process.

So what we need now is a leader that is strong enough to enhance and broaden the democratic process and to fully engage with local people. After all in effect is he not there to represent the people of Bury?