Ahead of the local elections on 1 May, new Ipsos research has revealed the low levels of public trust in politicians across the board.
Notably, while local councils engendered substantially more trust than Westminster – it still found over half of respondents don’t trust local authorities to operate in the interests of their residents.
Local elections: polling shows people don’t trust councils to act in their best interests
Commissioned by the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU), the new research found that nearly 3 in 5 adults (59%) in England feel local councils have the most impact on the quality of life in their area. This compares to Westminster parliament (12%) and the media (8%).
However, while it is true that people trust councils more than central government, the majority (53%) do not trust councils to act in the best interests of people in their local area. This remains at the same level as last year.
Additionally, 59% of respondents would like either more information on how decisions are made locally or have more of a say in those decisions.
Each year, the LGIU carries out this polling. It explores broad public attitudes to local elections, the work of councillors, and the role of local government in England. This year, Ipsos carried out the polling for it in the context of the major changes to UK governance that have occurred in the past year. Most prominently, there was a change in government in Westminster, and the new Labour Party government has since introduced its Devolution White Paper in December 2024.
The majority of respondents to the Ipsos survey (63%) were not following closely or at all the government’s reorganisation plans. There was also no real consensus that unitary authorities are better than the two-tier model that they are slated to replace.
Directly elected mayors were seen as more of a good thing than a bad thing overall. Notably, more people believed they have a positive impact rather than a negative impact with regards to giving an area a voice in Westminster (43% to 16%).
Councils are ‘not exempt from a widespread collapse in trust’
Jonathan Carr-West, Chief Executive, LGIU said:
This new polling tells a really nuanced story about public perceptions of local government. It’s clear that the public recognises the significant role that local government plays in everyday life, with the quality of public services directly attributed to the actions of councils and councillors.
But we also see that people are worried about a decline in local services, that they don’t understand how decisions are made, and that they don’t trust the people making them.
It is a complex picture. Councils are not exempt from a widespread collapse in trust in political institutions, but, crucially, they do receive higher trust ratings than central government. People overwhelmingly believe that local residents should be involved in decisions about their areas, and a majority want to understand more about how decisions are made.
This means that if we are to rebuild trust in our politics, then local government offers us the best platform from which to do so. And local government reorganisation offers us the mechanism.
The next two years will be critical. Given the low levels of understanding among residents of both existing governance arrangements and the proposed changes, there’s a real risk that devolution and reorganisation processes carried out at pace and without sufficient public engagement will exacerbate the current crisis in trust.
But there’s also an opportunity here: engaging communities in the creation of new structures and ensuring that those new strategic authorities and unitaries function in ways that effectively include local people could be instrumental in rebuilding the trust in political institutions we are currently lacking.
Perhaps the real insight from this polling is that, as ever, how you manage the process of change is as important as the outcome itself.”
Keiran Pedley, director of politics, Ipsos UK said:
These findings show the public recognise that local government is important but they do not always know much about how it works. In this context, it is perhaps unsurprising that there is no real consensus about how it should be run.
The public want local government to give residents a say and deliver local services well. There are signs in the data that directly-elected Mayors are a net positive in that direction – but again no overwhelming consensus – suggesting that, for local government at least, one size does not always fit all.
Of course, the LGIU’s survey results are hardly surprising. When it comes to local elections, turnout often teeters staggeringly low. It has consistently barely scraped or stayed under a third in recent years. These latest LGIU findings just drive home the fact that for many of the most marginalised communities, politicians – whether at Westminster or the local council – simply don’t represent them.
Featured image via the Canary
