Rowntree gives us something to chew on
If you read my rant about the problems of being one of the "usual suspects" implicated in the crime of public and citizen participation - you will appreciate how pleased I was last week to read that, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, far from being the problem, I might be part of the solution. And not just any solution, but the "1% Solution" - not a mouthwash but an answer to the problems of the lack of participation as citizens and members of the public.
Challenging views
The Rowntree report, Community Participation. Who benefits? challenges the perceived view that public involvement in the governance of local organisations inevitably and of itself leads to more responsive services, greater participation in democracy and "better" communities. Those of us working to involve people in local decision-making will not be surprised by their finding that the existing patterns of formal public engagement in governance result in "those who are already well connected becoming better connected". In other words, the same people pop up everywhere and everyone else is apparently nowhere to be seen.
So far, so familiar. Who indeed is benefiting from the perpetuation of this approach? It seems that the "social capital" is being kept pretty much within the hands of a small, self-perpetuating and often rather fed-up group. And trying harder to do more of the same is clearly not making any real difference. What is missing is the link between these formal structures and the much less formal everyday spaces of community life where "normal" people go about their daily business, form links and participate in decision-making: the school gate, the church, the newsagent. The challenge, according to the report is "to make more people's everyday civic engagement count by designing the formal structures of governance in a way that taps into the informal spaces of community life that they routinely inhabit".
Don't change the people, change the structures
Aye there's the rub. There is no point in waiting for the people to come to you. They are not coming! And frankly why should they? It is not that they are not involved in civic activities. They are, but they are doing it somewhere else and in ways that are meaningful and useful to them. The report sets out some useful benchmarks using UK data and from Porto Allegre in Brazil for an account of the celebrated participatory approach there.
©Joseph Rowntree Foundation "Making the most of community participation - the 1% solution"
Please let's forget about trying to get the public to attend our tedious AGMs and public meetings and beating ourselves up when they don't.
We should not be trying to change the people to make them fit in with the structures. What we need to do is change the structures so that they work for people. No matter how hard we try, it is unlikely that we will ever involve more than a tiny percentage of the public in the formal processes of governance, the 1%. The reasons for this are well rehearsed in the report and familiar to most of us. What matters far more is that institutions and the tiny but significant elite who are supposed to represent the public actually reflect, acknowledge, and are aware of the contribution of a much wider range of people and that they are properly accountable to them.
Getting the right 1%
If they get it right, they can indeed be an important part of the Solution. But they need to be the right 1%, perhaps selected in new and different ways. The report suggests a number of ways in which we could approach this. In order to bring new faces into the 1%, more community organisations could be run as community interest companies bringing social entrepreneurs into the game and turning local people into "shareholders". People could be selected by lottery with financial incentives to encourage them to put themselves forward.
The 1% , whether made up of old or new faces, needs to be bound into local communities so that they are known, trusted and can be held to account - the report is a bit vague on how this might work in practice, suggesting a "key role" for local groups such as faith organisations etc. This might be trickier than it sounds. We all know that some groups can shout a lot louder than others and that some are more "attractive" than others. Someone somewhere needs to make sure that the quieter (and less attractive) voices are heard too. Are the 1% now going to be expected to spend all their lives going from one small community body to another or will there be some better way of building these bridges?
A community governance service
Capacity building for participation is essential. The 1% will need support and training if they are to fulfil what could be a very difficult and demanding role and the bridge between two very different worlds. Community organisations will need help to clarify roles and relationships and the capacity in terms of time, skills and money to develop their own roles. The report proposes a Community Governance Service which would exist within local communities to provide this support with the long term aim of improving both the level of participation and the quality of input. Perhaps this is something that the anticipated Local Involvement Networks (LINks) might branch out into? If these links between the 1% and the rest of the community do not result in the right issues getting to the table, the report proposes a "local right of initiative" which would allow citizens to set the political agenda by demanding that a local authority or police force take action on a particular issue of concern, something which sounds a bit like the proposed petitioning in the NHS. We supported this idea for wider participation in October.
Make it a national priority
Finally the report suggests that community participation should become a national priority - politicians need to put their money where their mouths are to enable (and financially support) community participation as a "universal entitlement". There is certainly plenty to be working on!
There are lessons for all of us in this report. Above all we need to start to value both the 1% and the 99% and put the needs of the people before the needs of the institutions and structures.
Caroline Millar (December 2006)
Associate of the Moore Adamson Craig Partnership