Newham Referendum: A Mandate for Change. Err…Maybe.
For those of you who are wondering why the council has not been a little more energetic in informing the public about the referendum, we can assist. Statute says that the authority must publish a notice, not less than 56 days before the date of the referendum “in such a manner as he or she considers likely to bring to the attention of the persons who live in the local authority area a notice which contains etc….”. Newham Council have an information slot on their website which went up just before Christmas. It appears that they also posted a notice in the Recorder. At the time it seemed they deemed this to be sufficient to meet their statutory obligations.
As to why they haven’t been more active in their PR, we understand that councillors were told that "there is a prohibition on the Council publicising information about the Referendum including any material that (a) provides general information about the referendum (b) deals with any of the issues raised by the question to be asked in the referendum …”
This was followed by advice that “The legislation’s intention is for the Council to remain overtly neutral and not use public funds that may promote a campaign or its preferred option, if it had one. This campaigning role is intended to be carried out by independent campaigners or campaign groups.” Nothing wrong with that, except that in reality it meant that the council did next to nothing. This did not impress all of the councillors and it seems that the legal advice to the council has changed and councillors have now been given the following advice :
To update you:
a. The web pages have been updated on the lines suggested by a councillor and the main page now references the Referendum rather than just the generic Voting in Newham;
b. The referendum has been given more prominence so it can be more easily seen by visitors to the pages;
c. Additional factual information on the referendum has been added.
d. The draft proposals and notices have been on the website since December and February respectively. The draft proposal contains details of the committee model agreed by full Council.
e. We are looking at the option of an awareness raising postcard taking into account the logistics of doing this so they arrive sufficiently in advance of 9 April, the legalities and also the cost. Please note it will be very basic in content and focussed simply on awareness raising of the referendum and the date.
It is noted that notice of the referendum is published on Monday 29th March and poll cards have only just been sent out.
Unfortunately, the proposed Newham Mag for April is not going to be published, which would have included an article about the forthcoming elections.
I have reviewed the Community Assembly postcards and spoken to colleagues. Their intention is to raise awareness of the meetings not to seek to limit, define or suggest what is discussed. This is a matter for the community attending the meetings. As the meetings take place in the pre-election period and in large part after 9th April, the publicity about them must also be compliant with the restrictions on publicity before 6th May.
Councillors may feel that they have not received the most consistent advice from their officers!
We are beginning to see occasional posts on various platforms from Labour and sundry other parties making reference to the referendum. How many people are taking note of these is anyone’s guess.
Given that the turnout in what is really a glorified local election is likely to be small, we wonder just how many people are going to vote in the referendum. The idea of voting FOR the Mayor of London and voting AGAINST a Mayor in Newham at the same time has always seemed a recipe for some confusion.
We predict that the winning vote in the referendum is likely to be around 15% of the eligible electorate.
Hardly a mandate. And we hope that we are wrong. But let’s see if the parties can inspire the population and generate some enthusiasm for this costly exercise.