This is 'Big Society': Government scraps duty to inform, consult and involve local people

[ttosca]

Local public services (councils, police and fire services, and local health bodies) have for almost two years been under a legal duty to inform, consult and involve local people.

Now the government plans to remove that duty. This will take away a legal safeguard for local people and give succour to those officers and councillors who feel ?they know best?. It is hard to see how this in any way squares with David Cameron's stated aim of a Big Society to ?give people more power and control to improve their lives and communities?.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of this proposed ditching of the duty to involve is its manner and timing: sneaked in as one sentence within guidance on a different issue ? Best Value ? at just the moment when local public services are most under threat and public concern is at its greatest.

Views vary on how effective or important this duty has been. Urban Forum conducted a survey of community and voluntary sector representatives just over a year after the introduction of the duty, which suggested that it had produced little change. But others, especially those working in councils and fire authorities, report it has made it much easier to argue for the importance of engaging citizens.

Some point out too that changing the culture of organisations ? so that involvement is seen as a good thing in its own right ? is a better approach than using legal threats. But changes to culture and to laws always go hand in hand. Often changes to the law help to develop the culture change (think equalities or drink-driving legislation), and acts to ensure that those slowest to open up are subject to a stick as well as a carrot.

Ipsos MORI last June found that some 11% wanted to be actively involved in decisions about cuts in local services; a further 29% wanted to have some sort of a say; and a further 36% wanted information; only 22% weren?t interested and wanted to leave it to the experts. So in total some 76% want some degree of information, consultation or involvement ? a strong argument to keep the duty.

Cynically, you have to wonder whether the Government feared that the duty provided those fighting local cutbacks with a potential legal weapon to prevent them.

Until and unless the Government outlines plans to give citizens a statutory right to participate in decisions on services and budgets, the duty should remain.

falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/government-scraps-duty-to-inform-consult-and-involve-local-people

I do worry whether this sends out the wrong message to public institutions, but then surely good engagement should not depend on a legal duty?

I suppose what I mean is - good services will be consulting anyway (regardless of Duty to Inform), and bad services will be conducting reluctant tokenism in order to comply.

I have read mixed reviews of its efficacy, and wonder whether the Localism Bill will have more impact in terms of changing cultures.

The government's just being honest, ttosca. It has no intention of giving away power - it just doesn't want the responsibility attached to the power (eg NHS, schools etc). So when a group of greedy international developers want to build on your village football pitch, and bribe, threaten or pressurise the local council to give it up, the government want to be able to sit back and say 'It's the will of the people - don't blame us.'

But that doesn't mean that the government doesn't have any power. Ask the people who live in a village in Northamptonshire. They were 'consulted' as to whether they wanted low-level radioactive waste dumped nearby, and 98% (?) said no. The local council duly said no, even the local MP (Tory) said no. But the government decided that it was in the national interest for it to be dumped there and nowhere else, and anyway it was perfectly safe. (Just not safe enough to be dumped anywhere near a large town). In a situation where the locals are in conflict with national interest, the needs of the nation come first.

Maybe that's just as it should be? Genuine question. But don't then pretend that local opinion carries any weight.

You say it's something that's existed for less than two years, then it must be something that the previous administration brought in only in its final few months.

So this one thing cannot be key to local consultation.