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BREAKING THE GLASS CEILING – CAN DEVOLUTION DELIVER?
14. Getting involved, staying involved and getting promoted “I don't think the problem is necessarily getting women into political representation, but keeping them and supporting them when elected.” (survey respondent) There is a general perception that women elected to local councils are less likely to have lengthy terms of office than men. This emerged from interviews and the research survey. Terms of office in three of the local authorities in the LCR were studied to explore whether this perception is grounded in fact. Information on terms of office should be published on Council websites along with other information about each elected member. In fact there are gaps and some errors and inconsistency in the information. Where possible the author has corrected the information based on personal knowledge and further research, but this has not been possible in every case. The errors and gaps relate to a small proportion of elected members, so while the figures cannot be 100 per cent correct, there is enough material there to get a general picture. In Halton, the average term of office for a male councillor is 19 years and for a female 12. In Liverpool, the average term of office for a male councillor is 9 years while that for a female is 7. In St Helens, the average term for a male councillor is 10 and for a female 9. Fuller data on term-lengths will be available in the supporting notes for this report at edgehill.ac.uk/isr/publications. While statistics demonstrate a gender gap, it is important to look at the reasons for this and the implications for women in politics. Shorter terms of office could be a factor of seat selection. A councillor in a marginal seat is always more likely to have a shorter term of office than one in a safe seat. There could also be internal party competition around candidate selection, although for this to be key we would need to assume that women incumbents were more generally losing party selection battles against men. However if women are generally staying for shorter periods, the possibilities to develop into leadership roles are fewer. It will therefore be important to identify whether there are factors, outside the obvious political and electoral ones, which are affecting retention rates. These might be factors around child-care and family or around outside employment. They may also be around the general culture of the political arena.