Section One: What do councillors do?

Councillors have a wide-ranging role and it is up to each individual councillor to choose how they work. However, broadly speaking, councillors have three main areas of responsibility:

  • ward representation
  • decision-making
  • community leadership

Ward representation

The London Borough of Waltham Forest is divided up into 20 areas – known as wards – and each ward elects three councillors.

For many councillors, representing their ward is the most important aspect of their role. This can involve lots of different things but usually means councillors will spend time:

  • listening to the views of local people so that they know what problems and issues exist in their ward;
  • ensuring that the needs of their ward are taken into account when the Council is making decisions about how it is run, what services it should provide and how it should spend its money;
  • working with Council officers to bring about improvements to their ward;
  • holding surgeries where local people can drop in with enquiries about the Council;
  • getting involved in local campaigns; and
  • offering support to local schools, community groups, businesses and other organisations.

Decision-making

All councillors are involved in making decisions about how the Council is run, what services the Council should provide, and how the Council should spend its money.

Full Council is made up of all 60 councillors and is responsible for setting the Council’s overall policy and budgetary framework. This includes making decisions about major Council strategies, agreeing the Council’s annual budget and approving the level of council tax each year.

Most other decisions are made by either the Cabinet, which consists of ten councillors who are each responsible for a particular area of the Council’s work, or by individual Cabinet members. Some decisions are delegated to Council officers.

The Council’s Constitution sets out which committees, councillors, and officers can take which types of decision.

Many councillors who are not in the Cabinet are members of an Overview and Scrutiny Committee. These committees have the right to investigate any aspect of Council business and make recommendations about how it should be changed. They can also “call in” decisions made by the Cabinet or by individual Cabinet members and ask that these decisions be reconsidered before they are put into practice.

Some councillors will also sit on the Council’s Planning Committee, which makes decisions about which planning applications should be granted, and some councillors will sit on the Licensing Committee, which has responsibility for granting and reviewing licenses to local pubs, bars and other places of entertainment.

For more information about how the the Council makes decisions, please see the page How decisions are made.

Community leadership

The Council is not the only organisation which affects the quality of the local area. Lots of other organisations and agencies play an important role too, from public services such as the NHS and the police to businesses, charities, and voluntary and community groups.

Community leadership is about ensuring that these organisations all work together with the Council to make Waltham Forest a better place for the residents who live and work here.

Since councillors cannot tell these other organisations what to do, the councillor’s – and Council’s – role as a community leader is centred around:

  • building a shared understanding across all these different organisations about which key local issues need addressing
    and
  • co-ordinating the actions of these organisations to make sure that everyone is working together in the most effective way.