Talk:Council of the Nations and Regions

Merge

This article should be merged with the existing article covering the IGR in the UK (Intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom). The existing article already has information on the previous two methods used so it makes sense for information on this new method should be incorporated there to ensure continuity and ease from being able to all necessary information in one place. ChefBear01 (talk) 15:13, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I think merging would be a bit counterproductive. It'd be like merging the House of Commons and House of Lords articles into a single article called "Parliamentarianism in the United Kingdom". Similarly while it's ok and perhaps useful for the wider article existing, it shouldn't be used to remove the individual ones which go into more detail about the existing structure and continuing existance of the political body. Likewise it allows the wider article to not get bogged down and bloated. For the same reasons, we shouldn't remove this article. I'm happy to put a "Further:" at the top of the background section however Bejakyo (talk) 15:43, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think that the HOC and Lords is a good comparison as they exist separately and are both active whereas this is meant to superseded the previous method which is why the existing article has the name it does to accommodate the changes without creating loads of unnecessary fork articles that only have a small amount of information. Other than the membership and the lead the background seems to just repeat what is already in the existing article.ChefBear01 (talk) 18:14, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

This isn't really the case, the Intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom article has essentially no information on the Council bar the officeholders on it. Going WP:NOTMERGE would recomend against merging, as both this article and Intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom are warranting their own articles (both meeting the WP:GNG), and a strict conclusion that only allows information the Council into Intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom would result in the intergov article being more clunky than it already is. (The article would benefit both from more prose in just about all sections, in adition to other cross-linked articles being seperated out, but that's a different topic)

The Intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom should remain an a broader article talking about the history of relations between devolved administrations and westminster, and relations between them in general. The Council of the Nations and Regions article should remain about the existing political organ, with its brief pre-formation background (particularly in regards to the Brown Report), and be expanded as further developments occur, such as the the upcoming first meeting of the Council Bejakyo (talk) 18:55, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree.

Intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom focuses on the UK/S/W/NI relations.

There has never been a structure for the mayors. The cabinet of mayors was never set up.

I can imagine two possibilities:

• Intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom should be restructured to be primarily around the chronological sequence of structures: "Joint Ministerial Committees", the "Prime Minister and Heads of Devolved Governments Council" and the "Council of Nations and Regions"
• Intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom should be restructured to be primarily around the two parallel branches:
  • the "Joint Ministerial Committees", the "Prime Minister and Heads" of "Devolved Governments Council" and the "Council of the UK"
  • the "Proposed English Cabinet of Mayors" and the "Council of England"

DotCoder (talk) 20:39, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. For at least two reasons:

1. Ensuring "continuity and ease from being able to [sic] all necessary information in one place" is an argument that could be used to merge all sorts of articles - eg, why don't we merge the United Kingdom and Scotland articles so that readers can get all of the information on the United Kingdom in one place? Ergo, this is a very weak argument.
2. The Council of the Nations and Regions is not an exclusively intergovernmental body - check the dictionary definition of "intergovernmental" if you don't believe me. If there was a body set up involving just the UK prime minister and the English combined authority mayors, we would not accurately call that an intergovernmental body. England's combined authorities are not "governments".

There may be an argument for mentioning the Council of the Nations and Regions in Intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom, especially if it ends up replacing, de facto or de jure, the Prime Minister and Heads of Devolved Governments Council (which I don't think it should, but my personal opinion is of course irrelevant here), but the two articles should definitely not be merged. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 11:13, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose on the basis that the Intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom article is already messy and crowded, and focuses (or should) primarily on the inner workings of intergovernmental relations between the governments and not the bodies established to achieve this. Goodreg3 (talk) 19:26, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Propose removing population figures

The population figures that have been added to the membership table seem to have been added to make a political point about the uneven representation on the Council of the Nations and Regions of different parts of the UK.

That said, I don't even fully understand them - what does "uniquely represented" mean?

I propose removing both the "Population Represented" and "Percentage Unique Representation" figures, given that both figures are easily available elsewhere.

Alternatively, as a compromise, I propose removing the "Percentage Unique Representation" figures, along with the "Uniquely represented" figure for the UK prime minister, both of which seem quite bizarre. Kennethmac2000 (talk) 12:45, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I would assume the additions were made in good faith as opposed to pov-pushing, that said I think I agree with your proposals unless there’s a better idea Bejakyo (talk) 16:41, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the population figures. Even if it's not pov-pushing (and I don't think it is), it's probably WP:UNDUE.  M2Ys4U ^(talk) 16:44, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Political groups in infobox

Having political groups in an infobox is usually a useful addition to quickly determine the political makeup of a body - usually legislative.

It it really notable to have this information in the infobox? After all it seems to imply that whoever has the largest majority controls it, which is not how it works (although granted the Council is quite new so the procedures of it may not have fully developed). It’s worth noting that the Mayoral Council also has an infobox like this. notadev (talk) 22:58, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Membership of the council

The terms of reference for the council were published by the UK government on 17 October 2024. This document includes the official membership list for the council and in Section 8 explicitly lists that the Deputy Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster as "full members". Whenever I try to add these two office holders to the membership table, another user abruptly reverts my edits. I propose that the Deputy Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster should be added to the list of members and the number of members be stated as "19" in the infobox. - The terms of reference can be found at the following URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/council-of-the-nations-and-regions-terms-of-reference/council-of-the-nations-and-regions-terms-of-reference -Dn9ahx (talk) 20:38, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

The UK Government is a first party source in matters regarding the to it's own governance and is therefor unable to be an WP:INDEPENDENT source. Aditionally it is a WP:PRIMARY source, where as Wikipedia is built upon on WP:SECONDARY sources. When primary and secondary sources disagree primary sources are relied upon.

Whether the UK Government can or can not be trusted to report it's own affairs is besides the point. Wikipedia is built on WP:INDEPENDENT sources. As such in cases where the only citatation is a a .GOV.UK I have removed the citation, and kept it where it is backed by a reliable secondary source.

This is not a related side note but it's a good time as any to say, making use of WP:BareURLs is considered bad form and incredibly vunerable to Link rot. In future, to increase the longevity of your contributions it's recomended you format your citations using one of the citation templates available

The easy resolution to this is to make use of secondary sources (with formatted citations!) for your material, and I'm happy to leave it be from there. Though mind that sources prior to it's first meeting seem to say that the Dep PM is a member, but that Dep PM is seemingly not mentioned as being involved at all during or following the meeting. Bejakyo (talk) 20:58, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps there’s room to compromise here. I could add the sentence “According to the councils published terms and conditions, the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster are also members and other ministers of the UK government and devolved administrations can attend meetings on an ad hoc basis.” We can leave the DPM and CDL off the membership table and wait for the next meeting next spring to see if they participate in that meeting. In regards to bare urls, i am not doing it on purpose, i just don’t know how to properly format them so leave it to the bots to fix. Dn9ahx (talk) 08:16, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I think I'd be happy with a compramise like that. For cases where the only source is a press release, I think both stating in-text the source being the UK gov't, and adding the citation using template:cite press release, so it results in something like

According to a UK government press release [...]

As well I think leaving off DPM and CDL off the table for now makes sense, I didn't realise their next meeting was in spring but yeah I think it makes sense to wait until then to leave them off the table. Also means theres time for secondary sources to be written as well

I'm happy to help you with learning how to format citations if you like. Bots can be alright at sourcing but they're not too too good at it. It normally requires someone to edit it themselves. If they're of any use, Help:Referencing for beginners walks through the process for source editor, and Help:Introduction to referencing with VisualEditor for the visual editor. (though do note that both are focused around the four most used templates. for other templates like the press release one, similar processes apply. I personally find it easier to cite in visual editor just because of how templates function in it, I find it much easier when using a different citation template to the main four by pairing it with the manual cite feature. If you have any questions on it feel let me know Bejakyo (talk) 13:41, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I would like to chime in on this (if it isn't too late) as I have personally seen multiple edit wars regarding the accuracy of GOV.UK, usually on highly technical matters where departmental press officers and their ilk resort to excessive simplification to publish information consumable by the public. Indeed in this particular situation the information being referenced comes straight off GOV.UK on a page classed as "guidance", and therefore if this simplification has taken place it would not suprise me.

In this case, I believe that the chancellor is referenced as they are higher on the order of precedence than a minister, and point three clearly states that the chancellor attends by virtue of being the minister for intergovermnetal relations, not as chancellor, so this title should not be used. Similarly, the DPM attends as she is responsible for 'Local Government and English Devolution', and I would be led to believe that it only says DPM as that is the higher position which that particular member holds, and similarly to the chancellor they may be attending by virtue of them being secretary of state for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Unfortunately confusion arises as to whether they 'also attend' or are 'full members'.

If more technical information is published on the Council then a definitive answer may be reached, but for now I would agree that they should be kept off, and caution should be taken when referencing these positions and the Council notadev (talk) 01:22, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Not too late at all thank you for the input. This echos a fair bit of my sentiment as well and why I’m keen to hold off for the time being and wait for secondary sources, and that should GOV.UK be cited alone the article is explicit in-text that it’s coming from that. As you say press guides like this have a tendency to be oversimplified which is ironic and irritating for folks like us trying to make heads or tails of it without swerving into WP:OR

Small tid bit but the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a separate role to the Chancellor of the Exchequer]] (the one more commonly known as Chancellor) Bejakyo (talk) 01:55, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I hoped there wouldn't be any confusion as to which chancellor I'm referring to, though I suppose I should've specified the full position when I first mentioned it. notadev (talk) 02:04, 20 October 2024 (UTC)