When local councils were about to be introduced, I really believed that they could make a difference to our way of life. I thought that the decentralisation process would relieve the government of the smaller jobs to enable it to concentrate on the more important issues, while the minor duties would be passed on to a group of people who knew their locality well and who would enthusiastically work to make things better for residents.

It was when I started to deal with them, both through my work and as a private citizen, that I began to realise that while local councils are a great idea on paper, it is an altogether different story when it comes to the implementation of the concept. Today, after 18 years of local councils and in spite of attempts to reform them, I think that, generally speaking, their impact has not been as far-reaching as was anticipated.

The improvement that we have seen overall has been too little to justify the millions of euros that have been spent, and are being spent, to run the 68 mini-governments that have become the extended arm of bureaucracy. They are like any government department, where there are more people employed than required, and where everything moves at a snail’s pace, if at all.

In the months immediately following the first local elections in 1993, I interviewed all the mayors or executive secretaries to get to know more about their plans for their area. And it immediately became very clear to me that while a small number of councils would function well and to the best of their abilities, because they were determined to make it work, the majority had already fallen into the trap of barely doing what was minimally required of them – and many times doing it badly – and had no drive whatsoever.

The impression I received in those months has remained with me, and it has been strengthened by everything that has subsequently taken place. In the past 18 years, many mayors and councillors have come and gone, but the over-riding factor has been constant throughout: a few councils work, and work hard, but the rest have not come up to expectations.

To put it in simple terms, it all depends on whether the mayor is a driving force – and possibly has bigger political ambitions – and as such pulls everyone behind him; or is laid back, in which case the council and the area is dragged down with him. There are more of the latter than of the former.

The participation of political parties in local councils has caused more harm than good. I’ve said this right from the start: without political parties, local councils could and would attract better people to run them. Many refrain from taking an interest simply because they do not want to be involved in the political bickering that has characterised many local councils.

Without political parties being represented, councillors would really work in the interests of their locality and not of the party on whose ticket they were elected. It is easy to see that where there is a Nationalist mayor, the Labour group will try to slow down any progress, and it’s the other way around in councils with a Labour majority.

The closer the two parties are in terms of votes obtained at local elections, the greater the possibility that councillors in the minority will try to bog down the rest of the council in the hope that there will be a turnaround at the next poll.

While no more than a handful of councils have been successful in upgrading their area in general terms, there are many others who have failed miserably, mostly because the people elected lacked the skills and commitment to work. Some have been embroiled in scandals. Many mayors and councillors have fallen into a routine that favours the status quo, and councils in general have come to represent a system that is inflexible and bureaucratic.

Some argue that the reform carried out at the start of this legislative term has made local councils more accountable, and this is why there have been several cases where people involved have been caught in wrongdoing. This may be true, but accountability should also mean that residents do not find themselves up against a brick wall when they need help, or are simply told to call a number when they seek assistance from their local council. Councils were not set up to act as a telephone directory service.

Having six or more people employed with a council is also a waste of money and resources, particularly when the councils have nothing to show for this. In one recent occasion I personally witnessed, an employee of a local council mis-spelt a name twice – and she was copying it from an ID card.

Organising festivals and weekends of activities is good, and almost all councils have come up with their own ideas. But this is as far is it goes with most of them – they do nothing more and, frankly, one weekend of events is not enough to justify the resources needed.

In some places, the band clubs often do much more than the local council – and without having employees to back them up because they simply rely on volunteers who give up their free time, and sometimes their money as well, to keep the club going.

Come to think of it, I believe that band club volunteers would be able to carry out the work of some local councils much better, given the same resources that mayors and councillors have.

Just to put you in the picture, in recent weeks, some local councils have held clean-up campaigns in which non-government organisations were asked to give a hand. To me, this is yet another failure on the part of local councils – as the campaigns showed that councils were unable to carry out their cleaning duties themselves. And, I wonder, did all the mayors and councillors in these areas pick up a shovel to help out? I doubt it.

There are councils whose presence is felt only in the six months leading up to a local election at which the mayor and councillors are hoping to be re-elected. In places where there will be an election in March, rest assured that activities will pick up from now onwards.

In these localities, trees will be pruned, weeds pulled out and street-sweeping will become a regular occurrence. Zebra crossings will be painted, bulbs will be replaced in street lights and public areas will be cleaned.

The 101 jobs that local councils are supposed to do each and every day will finally be carried out in the time between now and the next poll. Sadly, they have not been done in the past few years and this time around, because the reform extended the local councils’ term in office, residents have had to wait much longer.

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