Inspiring Democracy Focus Group A report from a focus group session held on 7 March 2012 with residents of Dudley borough The focus group participants were 7 individuals who live in Dudley borough, 6 of whom volunteer and/or work for local faith groups, childrens’s organisations, disability or carer groups. The focus group facilitator was Sue Gorbing from changes. Joanne Weston from Dudley Community Partnership and Lorna Prescott from Dudley CVS took notes and supported the session.
1. What do councillors do? Participants shared their views and feelings about this. In their ward: • Attend groups to represent people – e.g. PACT • They are supportive of local issues • Work for good of community – heart, harmony – in their interest • They ought to be listening to what people in their area are saying • They help local people to support and push through issues to make action e.g. planning applications/decisions • Their aim is to remain elected members and so they make the right noises/offers to support people – not sure they can deliver all the time • They can have their own agendas/ pet projects • They choose what they want to support or not - ‘pick and mix’ e.g. ignoring invitations to meetings/events. In the council: • Run the council and steer Dudley through the storm • They can decide on where funding goes. • Councillors blame the government e.g. cutting funding, but claim glory/responsibility if something positive happens. Issues of responsibility and decision making – local verses central. They blame each other, not answering questions etc. • They are party political – have an agenda – have to toe the party line • They should be ambitious The facilitator reflected that people generally don’t know what councillors do. Ultimately they prioritise resources.
Who has the power? A participant expressed a feeling that the ultimate decision makers are informed by officers, and said they were unsure who has the power.
2. Does Localism change the role of councillors? Following some input on the changes being introduced through the Localism Act. participants discussed what might be implications on the role of councillors. They felt that power is still with the elected members. If Localism does shift power, they asked, who to? The group expressed real concern about people who get left out. Out there people say say ‘don’t bother trying to make a difference, because what’s the point?’
Apathy? Apathy is often cited as a reason that people don’t get involved. This TED Talk by Dave Meslin suggests that it isn’t apathy. He identifies 7 barriers that keep us from taking part in our communities, even when we truly care. (http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy.html)
Some participants see it as a responsibility of the voluntary, community and faith sector to help people to understand how to be involved and what is changing, but feel that the council makes it complicated, so that those who want to do things need to be educated in it. An example was given that Dudley CVS officers help groups to apply for funding, including Area Committee grants. The expertise is needed by groups because organisations offering grants make it quite complicated.
3. What could councillors do? Do more: • Mediation – advocate and bridge to people who make the decision • Being accessible and open to suggestions of urgency and understanding of impact of decisions or lack of on people. • Providing flexibility and responsiveness e.g. when needing funding. • Advertising of the urgency of situations • Rediscovering the sense that they are elected to represent people not the council Do less: • Stop issues becoming political for their gain. • Stop doing things that don’t work well e.g. re-writing policy if clearly bureaucratic etc.
Councillors should be like village chiefs! It was suggested that councillors should be like a village chief in giving support to people who are looking for information, and in signposting and connecting people.
4. An emerging role for councillors The focus group facilitator explained that historically, advocacy and accountability are central to the role of a councillor. Through the Inspiring Democracy research a third, increasingly crucial role has emerged, which is borne out by other research and commentary on the changing role of councillors, both pre and post the Localism Act. It is a role which involves supporting and developing communities. Aspects of this role are provided in the middle column of the table below, alongside aspects of the more traditional parts of the role. Advocacy Influence on behalf of and represent individuals and communities
Support and develop communities Facilitate individuals, groups & communities to influence and get involved
Accountability Corporate governance and management of the whole area
• Represent views in formal structures • Take up particular issues • REpresent issues from patch if there is collective interest • Advocate • Write letters • Get things done for individual constituents • Communicate residents’ concerns to Council and other providers
• Facilitate, network, negotiate, inform • Balance community leadership while trying to be firm and not partial to different communities • Encourage and support communities to get involved and work together • Work with neighbourhood governance arrangements • Motivate and inspire communities to believe in and do things • Critical friend to communities • Build networks • Support and inspire local groups and organisations to take up opportunities, express views, claim rights, challenge and influence
• • • • • • • • •
Set budgets Agree policies Decide priorities Negotiate with different stakeholders Develop relationships with potential allies Link to strategic service planning that has local impact Topic based interest Scrutiny process Challenge the status quo through political opposition
In order to support and develop communities, councillors must recognise the relationships between different parties and how they can play a part. It’s quite complicated - we have: • Lots of individuals – who need to know how to talk to each other, how to consider each other, who want things to change and who believe that they can play a role in that change, some of them will stick their own necks out. • Voluntary sector organisations and community groups - who need to know how to talk to each other and how to talk to their own staff and volunteers. Some are better at welcoming members or at talking to the council or other agencies. They understand that when they take certain actions things change for other people. They need to represent people properly, know who their members are and think about who is left out and the implications of that. • The Council (or it might be the police, the local traders association …. any ‘body’ which makes decisions). Some are better at listening to communities than others. They need to know what is going on, who needs what, how that will impact on others, how to communicate with their own staff and how staff communicate with each other, that staff can take decisions and respond to needs, they need to know what other people are doing and where their bit fits in.
5. What do councillors need from communities? In the light of the emerging role for councillors, the focus group discussed what councillors might need from communities. Participants wanted councillors to be more pro-active, to get involved more all of the time, not only when canvassing. Suggestions were made about much more open meetings/forums at different times and not just one-to-one, maybe theme or topic based. People could register interest online regarding issues to resolve/discuss (it was recognised that this is just one way). Participants thought that councillors need feedback from communities.
A clear desire for collaborating to run effective forums was articulated by focus group participants “We need to be working together. Currently there is confrontation and attention given to people who shout the loudest. Community groups have a role to play, they can help to ensure that councillors don’t get shouted at. Forums should be run by the community – a local meeting. Guidelines should be agreed, and an agenda of community issues and ideas (not individual issues).”
6. What should be the future role of councillors? Focus group participants suggested the following.
Supporting and developing communities Networking and informing Being firm and impartial, providing balance Being a critical friend Working with forums Inspiring involvement Encouraging involvement Motivating and inspiring
7. What are issues for councillors in new roles? The final discussion focused on issues which may arise for councillors in relation to their emerging role to support and develop communities. Focus group participants recognised challenges which councillors may face in relation to capacity, time and other resources, and in developing new skills required to carry out this role effectively. Shifting power and issues around inclusion: • There are issues around communities having more power: who will have it? • Inclusivity must be addressed • Councillors need to know their areas, the demographics • They need to know how people are already involved, when and where, and so on • There may be issues around changing viewpoints regarding communities having more power, especially the local authority needing to change their view. Accountability and transparency were highlighted: • Councillors need to be more open and transparent about what can/can’t make decisions on. Plus they should give feedback so people know about the impact. • Who they are accountable to? Changes in behaviours and approaches are desired: • Consultation is just ticking boxes, this is not good enough - we need to talk • There is the issue of changing how community members view things and their coming together. • We need to view us not as one big borough, but as lots of great little communities. • Need to celebrate whole communities and not just groups • Also we need to get involved in change and not just complain because the system mitigates against people doing things. Some people just do it. • Councillors need to mediate different interests, e.g. affluent and not affluent, young and old, bringing people together • Could people not elected help/go to meetings to spread the load? Non political, focus on working in the community • We need to stop the ‘its not going to work’ mentality and ‘we tried that before’ • It takes time to change, so little involvement and first, so little effect.
Involvement of young people was important to group members Focus group participants recognised that young people can’t vote, but often get blamed for issues or problems in neighbourhoods. The group felt that there are issues around different generation and mindsets. They would like young people to be encouraged and inspired to get involved. The group advocated the Youth Council being heavily involved, perhaps creating a real shadow youth council.
8. Inspiring Democracy Research Report and Councillor Guide and The research which the findings of this focus group contributed to was government funded (Department for Communities and Local Government). Community development specialists changes were commissioned by Locality to undertake the research and produce a guide for councillors. changes worked in seven areas across England, in each taking a different look at aspects of councillor and community relationships and objectives and considered the wider context of localism. In some areas research was undertaken with councillors alone, in others with with individual active citizens, or with voluntary and community organisations, and in some areas a mixture of these. Due to changes existing relationship with community networks and officers in Dudley borough (which began with community influence work in 2005), Dudley was selected as one of the seven areas for the Inspiring Democracy research. The other research areas were Wolverhampton, Solihull, Shropshire, Preston, Keighley (Bradford) and Wiltshire (see Appendix for further details). Through Dudley CVS a focus group of interested members of community groups and organisations in the borough was convened.
www.inspiringdemocracy.wordpress.com There are two main sections to this free online resource for councillors. The Councillor Guide explores the role of councillors to support & develop communities, raising issues, posing questions, offering food for thought and ideas about working in ways that can inspire and empower local communities. The Research Report contains details on how councillors see their role, how others see their role and what they want from councillors, what localism could be and and some of the barriers facing councillors and communities in working with all this. Training has been developed using the guide content and is available from changes
Report compiled by Lorna Prescott (lorna@dudleycvs.org.uk) Senior Development Officer, Dudley CVS based on notes made by Joanne Weston and information from the Inspiring Democracy research project Photo credits Dudley Council crest: Ell Brown (Flickr), village chief: gbaku (Flickr), community mapping and jam jars from Social Spaces August 2011
Appendix: Research activity in each area Dudley • A focus group with 7 people involved in various different voluntary and community sector groups and organisations – exploring what they felt local Councillors need to help them to work more effectively with the sector and with local communities. Wolverhampton • A facilitated a discussion with Elected Members, Council officers and VCS officers on Localism, the Act and implications (10 participants). • Discussion at a Localism seminar about what people’s expectations of Elected members are in this changing environment. The seminar was run as part of the pioneering Wolverhampton Community Engagement Learning Programme (www.wolverhamptoncelp.org.uk) - information gathered from this will also be fed into the research. [NB Wolverhampton’s Community Engagement Learning Programme is similar to Dudley’s engaging together programme (www.engagingtogether.org.uk) and practice is shared between the two, with joint activity planned.] Solihull • Delivery of a session on Localism to Elected Members which 18 local councillors from all parties attended. • A facilitated discussion on the implications of the Localism Act attended by a small number of Elected Members and Board members from Colebridge Trust. Shropshire • A small focus group with 3 Elected Members considering the impact of the localism agenda from a community-led planning perspective. • Follow up sessions looking specifically at the different roles of Councillors, and community-led planning with community sector stakeholders. Lancashire, Preston • A facilitated day with Third Sector Lancashire and Lancashire Association of CVSs to look at Elected Members as assets within communities in the context of localism. City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council area • An in-depth interview with a Councillor taking a community development approach to her work. • A focus group with Elected Members in Bradford to discuss the opportunities and threats of localism, exploring the different roles of Councillors and the emphasis toward supporting and developing communities. • A focus group with 7 Elected Members, considering 3 key roles of elected members: Advocacy; Leadership & Accountability and Supporting/developing communities as a discussion prompt. Wiltshire • 9 interviews with people involved with Wiltshire Community Land Trust and Warminster and Villages Development Trust, discussing the advantages and challenges of having elected members on their boards. Councillor board members, as well as other board members, were interviewed to explore the difference that it makes