Local government and public participation: Some ideas for policy makers and practitioners
In my PhD I considered why local government public participation initiatives so rarely made an impact on policy making. In particular I looked at the role of councillors who are, after all, the gatekeepers who decide whether policies will change or not.
The fieldwork I did in three local councils suggested a number of things that policy makers and practitioners could consider when thinking about how impact could be improved. The purpose of this post is to share those ideas.
I chose to look at co-governance initiatives (where councillors and public work together such as area forums or area committees). Given that the Welsh Government is proposing Community Area Committees (with public participation as a key function) as part of the recent draft Local Government Bill it seems timely to share what I found.
Overall my conclusion was that councillors, whatever their good intentions, find themselves constrained by the realities of local politics. In particular they worry about keeping their party group together, winning elections and governing effectively. If public participation initiatives are going to have impact either they have to work with the grain of local politics or the rules of the game will need to be changed.
Changing the rules
For national policy makers (such as Welsh Government) my research suggested three things that might change the rules of the game as far as councillors as concerned.
First policy makers could consider financial levers. Government funded regeneration initiatives have encouraged councils to operate community involvement structures and required them to show that they are effective. Linking grant money with initiatives and formally monitoring impact as a condition might provide a powerful incentive.
A second strategy would be to introduce legal mechanisms as is the case in many places outside of the UK. In my case studies I heard how greater use of petitions had been brought about by a change in the law. Consideration would need to be given to both monitoring and enforcement.
A third approach, complementary to the previous two, would be to place effective public participation at the heart of performance monitoring and inspection. The significant responses of Councils who have found themselves subject to criticism coming through this type of process demonstrates the potential influence it can have.
OK, nothing too original in that list but important points to consider nevertheless.
Rethinking elections
More fundamentally national policy makers could consider the formal institutional structures of local government (this is certainly an opportunity for the Welsh Government at the moment). My research pointed to the important influence of both elections and the way that decision making is organised through the cabinet system.
Where backbench councillors have responsibility for facilitating participation initiatives, closeness to constituencies pulls councillors towards dealing with community and service problems leaving less space to discuss council wide policies. Many councillors are also almost perpetually on election battle stations (particularly in areas where there are elections by thirds) and this creates an electoral gravity that is difficult to escape from.
It may be that a different electoral system, perhaps one using party lists, might serve to counteract these effects. The difficulty here is that such systems strengthen the hand of the party leadership as they become the selectorate that individual councillors need to appease if they are to be included on party lists. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is to dilute the effects of elections both by removing the option for ‘election by thirds’ and by introducing larger, multi-member wards that reduce the significance of highly local issues and individual complaints during elections.
On these grounds perhaps Single Transferable Vote would be the ‘least worst’ system. As Farrell argues in his book Comparing Electoral Systems (1998), it is a system that diminishes the power of party élites while giving voters the chance to consider both the parties and the individual candidates when making their choices.
The cabinet system, introduced to make decision making more efficient, has emphasised the difference between group leadership and backbenchers with the latter often feeling excluded from policy making processes. Of course it will be difficult for councillors to involve the public if they feel excluded themselves. If backbenchers could be given more of a role, perhaps through parliamentary style law making processes, then perhaps their engagement with the public on more strategic matters would be more meaningful.
Working with the grain of local politics
While it may be difficult (and inappropriate) to influence councillors directly, those practitioners employed by councils to support participation do have some control in two areas; they can advise on the institutional design of initiatives and they can work to build up the civic infrastructure that might support initiatives.
Thinking about the élite aspects of local politics can help the designers of participatory initiatives to ensure that they work with the grain of local politics. In my research I used Crawford and Ostrom’s Institutional Grammar Tool to assess the prevailing institutions (formal and informal rules, norms and strategies) in each of my cases. A structured assessment of this type or, at the very least, some conversations with councillors can provide a vital source of intelligence and user research at the design stage of participatory initiatives.
Through the research I identified five potential ‘triggers’, in other words, features of initiatives that make it more difficult for councillors to work with them and champion their outcomes:
- Where the initiative presents a threat to group cohesion by, for example, highlighting differences between community wishes and group policy;
- Where the initiative has insufficient democratic legitimacy because there are too few attending, because those attending are unrepresentative of the community or because no elected representatives are involved;
- Where the initiative is perceived as a ‘talking shop’, in other words, nothing is seen to be happening as a result of meetings;
- Where the initiative has the potential to provide unwanted political opportunities for opponents;
- Where the initiative is seen to be dominated by professionals so that councillors either feel that they have been sidelined or feel that they should take sides with the community against the professionals.
I’m not suggesting that all of these triggers can be ‘designed out’ but, by carefully considering the characteristics of initiatives and the prevailing political culture, it may be possible to reduce the extent to which they lead to negative reactions from councillors.
Building the civic infrastructure
A second way that practitioners might improve the impact of participatory initiatives is by improving the civic infrastructure that sits underneath them.
My research suggested that public pressure is perhaps the mechanism most likely to counteract the constraints acting on councillors. In one case I saw how residents associations had a powerful influence. In another the councillors felt obliged to work with structure previously established by the community when setting up their own initiative. In another area, organised pressure, such as that associated with tenants’ issues, for example, was considered to be something that could not be ignored.
The message here is that investment in the civic infrastructure feeding into initiatives is perhaps at least as important as the design of the initiatives themselves.
Working with the pioneer councillors
Finally, in my research I found examples of councillors willing to buck the conventions of local politics and try new approaches to public participation. By seeking out and working with these individuals practitioners may be able to challenge the local culture.
This very much reflects the conclusions of Barnes, Newman and Sullivan who argue in their book Power, Participation and Political Renewal that political change rests in part with those who are willing to go out on a limb ‘to challenge the dominant rules and norms and to question the ways in which the rules of the game are defined’.
The effectiveness of public participation initiatives is closely bound up with the electoral and governing strategies of local politics. This means that the impact of public participation can only really be improved when new ways of working go hand in hand with changes to local political practice. The key challenge for practitioners, therefore, is to seek out and work with the councillors who offer such innovations.
