How to be come a Labour Councillor

When asked, people often feel that being a councillor is "not for them" or that they will not be able to understand all the jargon and bureaucracy that may be involved. In fact, Labour believes that two of the most important skills that a councillor can have are the ability to listen to others and the ability to ask common sense and challenging questions.

As elected representatives, it is also important that Labour councillors, as a team, bring a broadly representative set of experiences and skills to their role. Local communities are diverse in their life experience, priorities and needs, and Labour councillors should reflect this diversity in the skills and experience that they bring to the council.

Experience can be gained from a wide variety of sources:

• being a parent or carer can develop skills like patience, time management, negotiation and an understanding of the issues and challenges faced by families
• your work experience may give you skills in understanding budgets, managing people, making decisions, completing projects and communicating with others
• as a volunteer or member of a trade union or faith group you may have developed the ability to empathise with others and see their point of view, or learned problem-solving and mediation skills
• as a Labour party member you have probably learned the importance of communicating with people in plain language, how to campaign and debate political issues with others who may have a range of different views.

More important than technical knowledge of local government finance or detailed knowledge of policy issues - because local authorities increasingly recognise the value of providing training and development for their councillors and you can pick up knowledge as you go along - is the capacity and willingness to learn and an ability to work constructively with a wide range of people - in other words your attitude and approach. Councillors are not there to be another set of local government managers or policy experts, but to exercise political judgement when faced with important decisions about their communities.