T.O. Civics 101, Session 5 – Are City Councillors Overworked?

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The following post comes to us from Bill Gaw:

During yesterday evening's discussion on municipal elections and the councillor's presentation on the roles/activities of a municipal councillor, I started out being impressed with the scope of effort required, and gradually became concerned about the weight of that work on the poor folk who win election. As their employer I began to worry that we are over-stressing our representatives.

If councillors find themselves overworked, I'm sure there is some mechanism for them to bail out without too much harm, but what about the effect on work quality?

Do we have research to suggest limits on how many roles a councilor can manage before their performance in terms of level of understanding, attention to detail, ability to attend meetings, and the ability to focus on the critical agenda, begins to fall apart and produce poor quality decisions? Have councillors themselves expressed a view on work load versus work quality?

I found it educational to attend the Budget Committee Capital Budget Hearing this morning. The member councillors seemed to have a fair grasp of the issues; the non-member councillors appeared to be vague on detail; a surprising number of councillors did not appear to be paying attention to the public presentations; and two councillors were asked to leave the committee room so that their side conversation would not distract a presenter. It was also interesting to note how often staff did not know the answers to perfectly reasonable questions from councillors.

Bill Gaw