I was out-and-about the other day and came across this advert:
My local authority want me to have my say in how they spend and collect their money. When I got home, I visited the www.barnet.gov.uk/budget site accordingly.
It was quite good. It went some way towards explaining how the council is funded and what it spends its money [...]
Posts under ‘Consultations’
Listening with a purpose
Nick at Podnosh has a very interesting post up here – one that ties in with the ‘eavesdropping‘ theme that I’ve been trailing here a while ago:
“…listening with a purpose is exactly what [public sector bodies] should be doing, otherwise they would be wasting public money. It doesn’t follow that this will be a malign [...]
What’s missing from this picture?
Via Spartakan, I’ve just seen this outline of how local debate could be / is structured. And, initially, it looks fairly complete as long is it is covering only debate, as opposed to policy-making.
I think it’s a useful diagram, and I don’t have the time to do this properly – graphic design is a non-trivial [...]
Going to extremes. ‘Whataboutery’: polarisation v ‘the hive mind’
I’ve been reading Cass Sunstein’s ‘Going to Extremes‘ lately – it’s worth a look.
Sunstein’s conclusion – that when we are filtered into like-minded groups that we reinforce each other’s prejudices and tend to reach more extreme conclusions than we would if we were on our own – is not a particularly startling one in [...]
A few words on governance
Local government governance guru Peter Keith-Lucas has
an article in this week’s Local Government Lawyer assessing the current state of governance in local councils.
It’s a good read – expert but not too technical. Keith-Lucas has plagues to put on the houses of both parties: the Labour party for watering down the proper role of scrutiny [...]
The myth of easy engagement: Evans’ Law?
Just a quick response to Tim Davies’ verygood post about ‘The Myth of Easy Engagement’.
There is one argument that supports his general position that, I think, he misses. I’m sure that sooner or later, some will come up with a frivolous law (like ‘Godwin’s Law‘ or ‘Muphry’s Law‘) but if they don’t, let me dibs [...]
Designing your environment
Just a short observation, in the light of Matthew Taylor’s post about the RSA’s work in Chelmsford that is being launched today.
“….a vision for the town centre must be based on a rich understanding of how people see and use the area and how they might be willing to change that view if the centre [...]
Strengthening local democracy, kinda
I’ve just read through the new Strengthening Local Democracy Green Paper, and I can’t sum it up better than Talking Heads did in their 1977 hit, Psycho Killer. Not the refrain “better run, run, run, run away”, but the verse:
You start a conversation you can’t even finish.
You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything.
When [...]
Against participatory democracy
Brian Barder’s excellent – and comprehensive – opposition to ‘participatory democracy’ has been up and commented-up for long enough to be worth a second visit if you’ve seen it already.
My only problem with it is that posts such as this probably have an obligation to advocate consultation – in it’s most creative and energetic form [...]
A think tank of your own
Here’s Joanne Jacobs on the Australian ‘Government 2.0 Taskforce’ making a fairly universal point:
Even where a public fund is used to identify new tools, the majority of these will either slip into obscurity after launch or will be greatly applauded for a while but not widely adopted or contributed to, by the policy makers themselves, [...]
A blog about representative democracy, social media and a conversational politics. How will peer-to-peer communications change local democracy? How is representation changing? 
