It may be of interest that Westminster City Council offered each ward £100,000 to spend locally, and has had difficulty in getting the money taken up in some parts of its area. The principle is surely right, though.

Re “empowering tenants” hopefully this further legislation (in the unlikely event that they get it through before they lose office) will make TMOs the default for the management of social housing, and reduce the large generalist housing associations – which are pretty hopeless at management these days – to a development function.

All this week, Liberal Conspiracy will finish reviewing the Communities in Control White Paper launched by Hazel Blears.

As in the older articles, the link leads to the impact assessments, not the white paper.

Voting Incentives
Paras 4.21 – 4.23 : Points out the problem that younger folk seem alienated from the democratic process, and suggests that both civic engagement classes and perhaps incentives would be worthwhile.

The white paper says,

Many people view voting in elections as one of the duties of citizenship, and carry out their responsibilities every polling day. Increasingly, though, voting is seen as an arcane and alien process, which deters many people from taking part. This is especially true of young people, who are turning their backs on voting in elections in record numbers.

It references the Electoral Commission report Election 2005: Turnout – How Many, Who and Why?

I quote from that report:

4.7 Our post-election qualitative research identified a number of factors contributing to non-voting at the 2005 general election:
General disillusionment with politics (and the media’s coverage of it).
Ignorance about politics, the political parties and what they stood for.
Difficulties in deciding who to vote for, in part because of weakening political alignments but also because of the perceived similarities between the main parties.
The nature of the four-week campaign whichwas seen by non-voters as, at best, lacklustreand, at worst, negative in tone and too stage-managed.
The perception that voting would make little difference, because the result was a foregone conclusion or because ‘nothing will change’

As far as I can see, there is nothing in there, nor the rest of that Electoral Commission report, nor the Power Inquiry, nor the Hayden Phillips’ review of party funding (which also talks about disengagement), that says people don’t vote because it is “arcane” or “alien” – essentially, they don’t vote because they don’t see the point.

According to the white paper, this is a problem best solved by “entering voters into a prize draw”.

Nothing here so far stops anyone judging that there is alienation and that the voting system is arcane (“mysterious” – yes if as a youngster you are not shown how it works; “secret” – no, it isn’t, because you can all go and do it).
What concerns me more is that yet again we have a govt document which is of poor quality. We deserve better. (I’m currently entwined in combating another muddle in another govt dept – my father, once a civil servant, would be turning in his grave if it wasn’t that we had scattered his ashes on a beautiful piece of the English countryside.)

The white paper says “voting is seen as an arcane and alien process” (not that it is alienating). I agree that there is nothing to stop anyone judging that “voting is seen as an arcane and alien process” – but I would suggest there is no evidence to support this judgement.

Let us then keep on saying it loudly : this is a poor document, and we deserve better. Sometimes a White Paper is supported by a factual document, so is there one here? (I doubt it.) Mind, I know a time, quite recently, when the supporting document was equally poor (and one of its writers admitted that to me).

That bit in 4.7,
Difficulties in deciding who to vote for, in part because of weakening political alignments but also because of the perceived similarities between the main parties.
The nature of the four-week campaign whichwas seen by non-voters as, at best, lacklustreand, at worst, negative in tone and too stage-managed.
The perception that voting would make little difference, because the result was a foregone conclusion or because ‘nothing will change’

just goes to show waht a pernicious influence the current major parties’ centralised and controlling machinery is. Anyone any ideas of how that’s ever going to be loosened, as I can’t see any genuine relinquishing of influence by the inner circles of the parties any time soon.
The comparisons with the US, where party strucures are far far less centralised (indeed scarcely exist, save for every 4 years) and the parties have wider variations within them are notable.

Can you tell me wihch pages on the pdf chapter 4 refers to? (Please give pdf page numbers not internal ones)

this is a poor document, and we deserve better.

It is not only poor but insulting to ignore the evidence and propose “prize draws”, when disengagement would be better reduced by offering competition, more positive campaigns, more personal contact with voters, more influence on political processes (at election time and within political parties), improving trust, etc.

If they don’t know all that already, after a number of documents, over a number of years, that have said the same thing, then they are ignorant and should not be in government; if they do know all that then they are being dishonest and wasting our time, and should not be in government. After all, they are the ones in charge and with a substantial majority to boot.

I hope Blears finds that constructive…

This whole paper is largely written from the standpoint of entrenching class politics (and thereby entrenching the political status quo).

It’s ‘us and them’ all the way through: the select vanguard protected by their officialdom rewriting a rulebook on how to join the club.

It is unfortunate in the extreme that today we have an example of the most visible and effective way of demonstrating how the public can have an influence – with the sacking of the head of children’s services at Haringey, Sharon Shoesmith. However I don’t think that there is anything in this paper which addresses how the public can get involved in ways which would prevent such serious service failure of the sort which lead to the death of Baby P.

Cabalamat,

Sorry for not getting back to you quicker. It’s pages 73 to 98 according to my Abobe pdf reader.

Mike @ 1,

You make an interesting point.

Do you have more insight to give us on that? I have a few questions and I’ll quite understand if you don’t know the answers.

The concept of passing resources down to a local level has always struck me as a ‘good idea’. The problem, it would seem to me, is, who rules? And how do you ensure accountability?

I would argue that you would need a democratic body at ward level, perhaps the equivalent of community councils, to take control of the money.

It seems to me that there is a huge democratic deficit at the moment with pressure groups filling the gaps that democracy doesn’t. I would consider it wrong, in principle, for advocacy groups or the like to be allowed to fill that hole. If some ridiculous religious group gained power and spent it all on flying yogic carpets as opposed to cleaning up dog turds what sanction would we have?

And how do we, the people, determine that we have had value for money out of the £100,000?

These are easy questions, they don’t appear to have straightforward answers.

Whoops, thanks for correcting that ukliberty – I’ve amended it now.

thomas @ 9,

I largely agree with what you have to say. I volunteered to do this on the basis that I think there is more sense spoken here – on LC – than there is in governmental pamphleteering….

It’s ‘us and them’ all the way through: the select vanguard protected by their officialdom rewriting a rulebook on how to join the club.

This seems to me to be correct. It does not really open up government to the people, it does not really allow our voices to be heard. It is, if you like, a public relations trap, for us all to fall into. Sure, certain savvy folk will benefit, perhaps through connections, but thee and me, no.

On Chapter 4 specifically, it seems to me that allowing us to vent, through petitions and the like, is seen by our rulers as an adequate response to the frustration we feel.

It is not.

It does not empower us in any meaningful way. The vast majority of folk would be more amenable to Iraq interpreters rights to live, or Gurkhas rights to live here than the government gives us credit for. At least, that is what I think. So, petitions mean nothing to a bureaucracy.

And, lets face it, that is the last thing they’d appear to want. Government appears to me to have an unnecessarily angry and exclusive face.

They say ‘we know’ when they clearly do not.

Agree with Douglas: if the petitions don’t actually follow through, then it is just X Factor politics – register your view as part of the illusion that you have power and choice, though it doesn’t actually make any difference.

Could you say a bit more about that £115m on commissioning services? That’s a heck of a lot of money, and I’m still very woolly about what the govt means when it talks about this. Is this subcontracting local government services by another name?

David Keen,

What central government seems to be insisting on is that funds provided to Local Authorities through Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships and Regional Empowerment Partnerships – I take it that that is the £115 million – will be dependent on a commitment to empowerment of these processes before the money is released. It seems to me that the Local Authority would still hold the budget.