In this blog Jessie Joe Jacobs reflects on women’s representation in local and regional politics. Jessie Joe Jacobs is the Director of the Democracy Network and ran to be Tees Valley Mayor in 2021.
In 2021 I was running to be Tees Valley Mayor; alongside Tracy Brabin, we were seeking to become the UK’s first female metro mayors. Yes, the first; because at that time, all nine metro mayors were male. Thankfully one of us won and we now have one of the nine but it’s still a pretty disappointing figure. I now lead the UK Democracy Network and part of my role is supporting the many women’s movements and organisations seeking to address gender representation in politics. And there has been some significant success. It’s encouraging for instance to see more women in parliament than we have ever had but when we look at the leadership of local and regional government, it’s clear we still have some way to go. Only 22% of council leaders are female and a majority of councillors and cabinet members are also male.
It should come as no surprise then, that we see this lack of female leadership negatively influencing policy and budgetary decisions. Cuts to local government have adversely impacted women more than men according to the women’s Budget Group. This is due to the fact that women are more likely to work in public services, rely on public services, and become the providers of last resort when public services are withdrawn.
Heather Wakefield, former Head of Local Government at Unison and author of the report, ‘Triple whammy – the impact of local government cuts on Women’, written for Women’s Budget Group said “Women’s refuges, public transport, street lighting , libraries, adult education, social care, youth services and community centres have all been affected (by austerity) leaving women less safe, unable to access learning and leisure facilities and increasingly having to fill the gaps in care provision.”
Yet we do not see anywhere an adequate response to this deepening crisis in regional growth plans and local budgetary decision making. Middlesbrough council were recently in the headlines for their consultation on turning off large parts of the Borough’s street lighting, a council run by a male elected mayor. The impact on women’s safety would be catastrophic. This coupled with cuts to Sure Start centres and Domestic Violence services makes it look like women don’t count in local budget decision making.
As a female leader in regional government I understood the consequences but also the opportunities of investing in women. The industrial and growth plans for the Tees Valley rarely made mention of women, something I sought to address within my own manifesto. One of my pledges was to boost business and employment opportunities for women and address the significant gender pay gap in the Tees Valley, not only because it is the right thing to do but also because it would be the single biggest action we could take to improve our local contribution to GDP. The UN has estimated that gender gaps cost economies some 15 percent of GDP. Natwest ‘A Springboard to Recovery: Building back better together’ report estimated £250bn would be added to the UK economy if women started and scaled up businesses at the same rate as men and according to the Women’s Business Council, equalising women’s productivity and employment to that of men’s levels has the potential for increased gross domestic product of 35% in the UK.
So with so much at stake, we must do so much more to ensure that women are given the support to lead at a local and regional level, because if we don’t, then my greatest fear is we will continue to see the lights turned off, the doors to a growing more gender balanced economy closing and the opportunities for women to grow, reach their potential, never fully realised.