Despite criticism from certain sectors of the press, the recent government white paper, ‘Communities in Control’, is an ambitious attempt to stimulate participatory politics at a local level says Faizal Farook from Demos.
The span of the white paper is large, drawing criticism that it is a ragbag collection of recommendations, lacking focus and purpose. This is unfair. The white paper recognizes that giving local people control at a local level requires a wide definition of what that control should be. Proposals start at the personal level, such as incentives for voting, new complaints mechanisms, and encouragements for volunteering and develop to wider institutional level changes such as participatory budgeting, neighbourhood management and locally focused commissioning. There is also a welcome focus on encouraging the involvement of young and older people, groups traditionally disengaged from local politics.
It is important for local government to remember however that new processes and procedures on their own will not guarantee a local population actively engaged with their council and local politics. The white paper proposals have to be part of establishing a new relationship between people and their council, and one of the key elements of this will be increasing trust in local government. Trust has an important part to play in the agenda set out in ‘Communities in Control’. A lack of it undermines confidence in council decisions and services, and can make it harder to engage and involve the wide range of people in the way envisaged by the white paper. Why would anyone take the time to take part in a process they don’t trust, with people they don’t trust?
In the past councils believed that the key to better relationships was better services. Yet improvements in local service quality have been accompanied by a decrease in satisfaction with local government. Demos’ latest pamphlet, State of Trust, seeks to explain this ‘performance paradox’. In actuality, service quality is only one of the elements that shape people’s relationship in their council. Equally important, but often neglected, is the quality of personal interaction between people and their council, and the character of decision-making processes.
As would be expected positive personal interactions between citizens and council staff, are at the heart of a healthy trust relationship. Councils that resolve people’s problems but did so in a way that proved frustrating and emotionally unsatisfying are, unsurprisingly, poorly perceived. A good result delivered badly does little to engender trust.
In terms of decision-making (for example with regard to planning, regeneration and resource allocation), what contributes to trust is not so much the final decision itself, but the quality of the decision making process itself. In terms of trust, people are less concerned about the outcome of issues but are more concerned that the decisions are taken in a fair, effective and transparent way, and that there are no hidden agendas.
The public is likely to start to build trust in a council only when they perceive it to be performing well against all three of these factors; services, interpersonal relations and decision-making.
However, Demos’ research has highlighted that the importance of these three elements, and therefore how trust is built, varies between different groups of people. This fact is of critical importance. Different people want different relationships from their local authority, depending on their particular needs and what services they utilize. This relationship can vary from between those who rely on the council merely to collect their bins regularly to those who have a complex and sometimes emotionally charged relationship with their council, such as those depending on the council for basics like housing, or trusting it to administer tax collection or planning applications fairly.
Ultimately these relationships depend on how dependent a particular member of the public is on their council (whether they are a ‘have’ or ‘have not’), and the extent to which that member of the public thinks in an individualistic- or community-minded way (whether they are an ‘I’ or a ‘we’). These factors influence exactly which elements of the trust building process (service, personal interaction, decision-making) are most decisive to different groups.
Ultimately the empowerment agenda set out in the white paper depends on an understanding that alongside new mechanisms for citizens to shape their locality and lives, local government needs to pay attention to building a relationship with its citizens. Without trust that councils will respond to what people need, in the way that they need it, empowerment initiatives will neither capture the public’s imagination nor broaden the range of people who get involved. Whilst there are legitimate questions about the extent to which people can trust an institution rather than a person, and exactly how much trust is actually needed for a positive relationship, greater trust can improve interactions between citizens and local government. But trust will not be created by accident or as a by-product of better services. Councils must focus not just on new processes, but also on how they need to operate these processes to create positive relationships between citizens and their local government. ‘Communities in Control’ recognizes that what constitutes empowerment varies greatly from person to person, depending on their personal circumstances. Local government must advance this understanding by actively responding to the different ways different people make judgments about them. Through paying attention to these relationships, councils can work towards increasing the overall levels of trust amongst all the people they serve.
