May’s English local elections ended one-party dominance in over 30 councils, with 64 of the 136 councils now under no overall control. But a council under no overall control elected by First Past the Post, is not the same as one elected under proportional representation.
The Cost of First Past the Post’s One-Party Councils
One-party councils often face weaker scrutiny, and our 2015 report The Cost of One-Party Councils estimated that we may be missing out on around £2.6bn in savings as a result. When scrutiny committees are dominated by councillors from the same party as those they oversee, there is little incentive to examine decisions or conduct closely.
But our case against First Past the Post is not mainly financial, it is democratic.
The difference is democracy
If a party is doing a fantastic job running a council, and a large majority of people keep voting for them, they should win a large majority of seats so they can keep delivering their work. The problem is when they win a large majority of seats when only a minority of voters want them to be in charge.
Likewise, the benefit of proportional representation is not that the council does not have a single party in control, but that the voters are in control of their streets and neighbourhoods.
Bradford shows why no overall control is not the same as proportional representation. Six parties are represented, and no party governs alone, but the results are still entirely out of proportion to how people voted. The problem with First Past the Post is not just weak scrutiny, but that voters cannot reliably use their votes to shape the council.
Local councils should be responsive to voters
Democracy works best when elections create a feedback loop between voters and their representatives. If your neighbourhood is getting better and the governing party’s support increases, they should win more councillors. If they lose support due to repeated scandals, it should lose councillors.
Under First Past the Post, a candidate only needs one vote more than the runner-up to win. Extra support changes nothing if they were already ahead, and falling support changes nothing until someone overtakes them.
In Bradford, Reform UK could win a third of all the seats on a fifth of the vote, because in the seats they won the progressive vote was split between all the progressive parties. Voters who abandoned Labour for a more left-wing party ended up splitting the left-wing vote and seeing Reform councillors pick up seats, even if they didn’t win any more votes. First Past the Post is a system that sees what voters are trying to do and produces the exact opposite.
Instead of a steady, responsive shift in representation, parties can lose support gradually and then collapse suddenly. That may please their opponents, but replacing a large group of experienced councillors all at once with inexperienced newcomers is likely to disrupt how a council operates.
Local councils under proportional representation
We already have decades of experience with local elections with proportional representation in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the Single Transferable Vote is used to elect councillors.
Proportional representation can still produce single-party councils, but only when voters support them. And when public opinion shifts, seats shift with it – without penalising voters for backing smaller parties. This steady ebb and flow means that most parties will at least have a few experienced councillors in their group, even if they see a sudden wave of new faces elected.
Proportional representation is not just about representing more parties, but about giving voters real control over their councils. If councils are meant to answer to voters, every one of them should be elected by proportional representation.
Every community deserves a voice. Add your name to demand that council chambers across England and Wales reflect how local people voted.
Add your name today