Anna Malina

Ensuring all voices are heard in ‘Community Planning’

Anna — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:29:50 +0000

Community Planning is talk of the town in some local authorities. The stated aim is to help people get involved in their own governance, moving from being passive consumers to empowered actors. The expectation is that engaging people in public policy deliberations and public service delivery can increase productivity while reducing costs. This is not a new goal; the idea has been around for a long time in other guises, including ‘Parish Plans,’ ‘Urban Regeneration Projects’ and ‘Local Health Checks.’ In theory, ‘community planning’ puts local people in charge of discussing what is important to them. In the first instance, if people in a local area decide they would like to develop a community plan in their local area, they need to put together a steering group of local volunteers to kick start discussions. Stakeholders might include local people and Parish or Town Councillors who want to get involved in the decisions that affect their area or community. Public sector leaders can get involved as catalysts and facilitators of structured discussions in order to resolve public problems. When completed, the community plan sets out a vision of how people want their area to develop over the next five-ten year period. It also proposes actions to make it happen, including:

things local people can do themselves – eg. setting up a new youth club
things local people can do with support by others – eg. developing an affordable housing scheme
things which require a change of higher-level policy or strategy – eg.introducing Neighbourhood Policing

After the community plan is finalised – which could take up to a year or more – progress on actions identified need to be reviewed regularly.

If Parish Councils are focussing on this approach to help local decision-making and guide allocation of precepts and local authorities are depending on input from the ‘community planning’ process to develop strategic plans and service delivery, it is vital for them to ensure that all local people have an equal opportunity to get involved and the loudest voices are not the only ones to be heard. Therefore, many more people in local communities need to gain access to increasing amounts of information and tools of empowerment

Satirical take on political back-stabbing and participatory democracy gone mad (circa 1970)

Anna — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:59:17 +0000

Just saw intriguing post on Delib blog and looked for more information on a film called The ‘Rise and Fall of Michael Rimmer.’ This is a 1970 satire around pompous, obsessive political ambition, back-stabbing political ladder climbing and simplistic thinking which sends participatory democracy completely bonkers. The film stars the wonderful Peter Cook in the lead role, also John Cleese, Harold Pinter, Arthur Lowe and Ronnie Corbett, all looking very fresh and young. I can remember the political focus on increasing public participation years ago (though have never seen this film), and have seen very old ideas dressed up in ‘new’ policy directives by governments ever since. Watch this hilarious clip to learn the lessons of political game playing, information overload and consultation fatigue. I’ve just ordered the whole dvd from Amazon. Film is over 40 years old now – should be compulsory for all politicians and public sector workers to see this … even just to have a laugh.

Social App Store

Anna — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:33:50 +0000

In mid July last year, discussion of the Big Society led to the idea of a Social App Store. Suggested initially by David Wilcox as a means to hold a variety of community tools to support the common good, others have now come on board to step up to the challenge. In this post, John Popham describes how the challenge is now on to identify and bring these tools and guides together to support both online and offline interaction. Free and cheap tools needed. Any ideas, help, how to guides etc please get in touch with John.

Localism Bill gets second reading

Anna — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:19:01 +0000

Follow discussion around the Localism Bill which has had its second reading today.

The DCLG ‘Plain English Guide‘ sets out four headings:

new freedoms and flexibilities for local government
new rights and powers for communities and individuals
reform to make the planning system more democratic and more effective
reform to ensure that decisions about housing are taken locally

Decentralisation and Localism: An Essential Guide

Anna — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:08:11 +0000

I’m definitely not against decentralisation of power, but am wondering how the 6 steps from Big Society to Big Government illustrated in Decentralisation and Localism: An Essential Guide will pan out in practice. Also thinking some local governments will find it extremely challenging to support decentralisation with fewer staff and funds to enable localism and real community empowerment. Some local people have been stepping up to the mark for a long time but it won’t necessarily happen in the areas that most need it.

Cutting it: Big Society and new austerity

Anna — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 16:10:28 +0000

How is the ‘Big Society’ cutting it? The nef report analyses the opportunities and threats of the ‘Big Society’ vision, and how it will effect businesses, the third sector and democracy. There are loads of challenges but nef sees the progressive potential of the ‘Big Society’ as lying in:

Encouraging citizens’ involvement and action
Recognising that everyone has assets, not just problems
Building and strengthening social networks
Using local knowledge to get better results
Offering ways of transforming the welfare state.

A tool for locality working and community planning?

Anna — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 12:29:17 +0000

The Bettermeans tool offers an opportunity to move away from outdated command and control structures towards a much fairer system of participatory involvement. Decision-making, project management and governance tools can be used openly, efficiently and democratically, allowing everyone to take part equally. Could be very useful in creating less tokenistic locality working and community planning in the Big Society.

Your Local Budget

Anna — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 16:48:23 +0000

The Big Society Network and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) with support from the Participatory Budgeting Unit has launched ‘Your Local Budget,’ a new a project designed to give people a say in how mainstream local authority budgets are spent. Ten local authorities across the country will now develop new ways to involve local people in tough spending decisions, building on the pioneering approaches to Participatory Budgeting that have been developed around the world. The key aim is to harness the knowledge, ideas and capacity of local people to find more innovative and effective solutions to the financial and other challenges that now face public services. Another challenge is to increase public engagement on vital issues and improve trust. To coincide with the launch on 3rd November, NESTA is publishing a report, ‘Your Local Budget,’ which sets out the ambition behind the Your Local Budget programme and how it fits into the wider context of ‘people-powered public services’.

Click Clever, Click Safe

Anna — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:19:22 +0000

Click Clever, Click Safe Strategy, launched by the UK Council on Child Internet Safety, has been created as a result of one of Tanya Byron’s recommendations in the report ‘Safer Children in a Digital World’ (Byron Review). This strategy will help practitioners focus on the opportunities and risks to young people online.

Bibliography Social Media

Anna — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:10:31 +0000

Bibliography of articles concerning social network sites. For an overview of this space, including a definition of “social network sites,” a history of SNSs, and a literature review, see boyd & Ellison’s 2007 introduction to the JCMC Special Issue on Social Network Sites, Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.