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Katie Hill
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The future of participation
We are living in interesting times. Never before has citizen participation been higher on the UK political agenda. Participation has become the buzzword across our public institutions in health, education, governance and the built environment. It seems like participation is everywhere.
On one hand I think this is inspirational – if effective systems for participation can be developed then we will end up with a much more cohesive society where people feel empowered to take control of their own environments and experiences, and where people will have a sense of ownership, belonging and commitment to their public services and institutions which will enrich the services that are delivered and generally make the world a happier, healthier place.
On the other hand including participation in everything is highly problematic. It’s happening too fast and is being done badly on too many projects. People are becoming increasingly skeptical about the impact their participation has on what actually happens. There isn’t enough time or money in public projects to enable professionals to carry out meaningful collaborative work. The existing models for participatory practice that we have are limited, and there is no time or space to reflect on what is happening and improve it in a way that will have a significant impact.
I’m determined to stay optimistic because I believe that participation is important, and that a healthy future society needs to be achieved through a collective effort, but I want to find out how this can work in practice. What do you think?
Posted on 22/03/07 in Participation
Comments
Katie
You have just summed up the participation dilemma in a neat way. I have been involved in developing public participation in public services, policy making and urban development(on and off) since 1995, from surveys of thousands of people to developing community groups who can lead complex regeneration projects.
Most have been a success (occasionally they have failed, but there is a risk, which everybody needs to understand) and the people who commission the work have used the outcomes well. But sometimes (if it’s not an action project) the results do sit on shelves and this is infuriating.
But there are basic steps:
1. Be realistic and don’t raise false expectations
2. Be clear about the limitations of the participation and what the boundaries are
3. Be committed to delivering some or all of what comes out of the process - where possible give people power and a budget and don’t present them with options if a decision has already been made
4. Try to involve as many people (who are likely to be affected) as possible in ways that are appropriate to them - there is no point using public meetings for reaching young people to discuss youth activities - outreach to those who are disenfranchised, texting, blogging, mblogging, vlogging are much more effective - stuff on their terms
5. Make sure people know that most things take a lot longer to happen than expected and that there are sometimes good reasons why things don’t happen (which need to be communicated back), but get some quick wins in…
6. and on and on and on....
Ultimately, participation is not perfect, but we need to keep improving, because there is (rightly) is no way back… Remain optimisitc.
22/03 at 02:20 from alistair
Thanks Ali, it’s nice to know that there are professionals around who carry the weight of responsibility for doing effective participatory work… and take it seriously.
It’s timely to think about participation this week with local elections happening - the democratic process being the cornerstone of our society (debatable!!)… For me voting and the whole political system is the most underutilised means of participating in our society.
There’s a massive ‘us and them’ culture in this country about councils. So many people have an axe to grind with their local council and so often that seems to make public decision making and action come to a stand still. People forget that we can all be on the council, we can all stand and represent our communities. Councillors are (well, should be...) every day people. I think that one of the problems is that people get so wrapped up in party politics and political ambition that they forget that at a local level it should be about finding someone that will represent the community fairly, will do their best for that locality, and will not be afraid do what’s best for the local area rather than political agendas.
Our political system is far from perfect but in terms of participation it’s definately a first step, and if we want to acheive something this week in terms of improving participation it should be that we all go out and vote. Even if it’s for none of the above.
01/05 at 01:31 from katie
