This article was written by Miriam Levin, head of community action and giving at the Office for Civil Society in the UK government. This article has been selected as one of the finalists in Apolitical’s citizen engagement writing competition.

57% of people want to be involved in local decision-making.

But only 26% of people feel like they can influence these local decisions.

The work that we’re doing at the Office for Civil Society, which is part of the UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, is about trying to bridge the gap between these two statistics.

We know that people want the opportunity to affect the life of their neighbourhoods. We also know that, despite the fact that ordinary people deal with issues relevant to government every day and tend to know the best ways to tackle them, they are rarely asked their opinion or given the opportunity to be part of the solution.

In the 2019 Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement this disenfranchisement reached record levels, as 42% of respondents felt they had no influence in local politics – a record low since polling began in 2004.

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So what can we do about it? Can we open up our democratic systems so that people have a chance to be involved in decision-making between their four- or five-yearly trips to the ballot box?

Yes, I believe we can. And I want to use this thought piece to talk about one way of doing that –  citizens’ assemblies.

Come together

So what is a citizens’ assembly? In short, it consists of a random selection of citizens who are representative of the demographics of the wider population – for example, in terms of age, gender and ethnicity.

The assembly members are brought together for a long enough period of time to hear from experts covering all sides of the problem under discussion, after which they discuss the issue between themselves, with independent facilitation.

“Citizens’ assembly members are brought together for a long enough period of time to hear from experts covering all sides of the problem under discussion, after which they discuss the issue between themselves”

The outcome is a decision or set of useful recommendations for tackling the issue, which have public support and which the commissioning body can then act on.

They’ve been used all over the world to tackle some of the hardest problems. For example, a citizens’ assembly was tasked with deciding whether the South Australian desert should be used for burying nuclear waste. On the one hand, nuclear waste. On the other hand, a vast income stream for a deprived part of the country. After a six-day-long assembly, the members voted 70-30 against, and the state government shelved the idea.

In Ireland, 100 randomly selected people came together in 2016 to debate the country’s abortion laws. What happened is best summed up in the words of 56-year-old John, one of the assembly members, whose views started off – in his words – “in the middle”.

“As the time went on and we were getting more and more information, and as it was totally fact-based, unbiased, I saw myself moving, and a lot of other people moving too, to a pro-choice position,” he said.

“To the extent that we surprised the whole country when we voted at the end for radically liberalising the abortion laws in Ireland.”

Innovating democracy

So what does this have to do with the Office for Civil Society?

The Office for Civil Society works to build stronger communities. The way we see it, in order to build a strong civil society, we need three mutually reinforcing elements:

  • Active and mobilised citizens, who have the skills and confidence to take action on the things they care about
  • Physical and social infrastructure in communities to enable people to come together, to connect and act on issues collectively
  • And, lastly, government and public sector agencies to open up, share power and create opportunities for people to effect change by involving them.

We need to find ways of opening up the doors so active and mobilised citizens  can come into the decision-making space and be part of the solution. This is why we’re running the Innovation in Democracy Programme (IiDP) with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

IiDP is trialling citizens’ assemblies in local government, as this is the level where people are most able to see the everyday impact of the decisions that are made, and feel they can make a difference by being involved.

The face-to-face citizens’ assemblies are complemented by online engagement to extend the accountability, transparency and reach of the process.

There are currently three pilots under way:

  • In Greater Cambridge, citizens are making recommendations on how to reduce congestion, improve air quality and provide better public transport.
  • In Test Valley near the south coast of England, a citizens’ assembly is considering how to improve Romsey town centre to feed into the masterplanning process.
  • In Dudley, an industrial town on the outskirts of Birmingham, citizens are being challenged to consider how the community and council can work together to make Dudley and nearby Brierley Hill town centres vibrant and welcoming.

Participating local authorities committed as a minimum to respond to each recommendation, with a presumption in favour of delivering it. And if they are not going to implement something, they have to explain publicly exactly why not.

They also have to demonstrate how the citizens’ assembly is built into their existing democratic structures – it can’t just be a nice stand-alone event that happens outside of the council’s decision-making processes.

Investing time in exchange for listening

We know that, for the participating councils, this is a big step out of their comfort zone, so we weren’t just going to give them some money then walk away. We want this to work.

That’s why each council is supported by a consortium of charities, NGOs and research institutions – Involve, DemSoc, the RSA and MySociety – who are working with them to design and implement the citizens’ assemblies and digital platforms, and share learning across the councils and with other LAs. And we’re providing funding of up to £60,000 to cover the costs of taking part in the programme.

The four-day citizens’ assembly in Cambridge took place over two weekends in September and October, and the rest took place between November and the beginning of December. We’re working with Renaisi to evaluate the impact of these trials on participants and the local authorities.

“Their power comes from the contract between citizens and state that says if the citizens put the time and energy into participating, the state will listen and act on what the citizens agree on”

Citizens’ assemblies are in the news a lot at the moment. But they are just a tool. And, as a tool, they are only as powerful as the body that wields it.

Their power comes from the contract between citizens and state that says if the citizens put the time and energy into participating, the state will listen and act on what the citizens agree on.

If nothing happens or changes as a result of a citizens’ assemblies, then it is just an expensive, time-consuming talking shop. And we know that when consultations happen and people’s views are ignored, it is more damaging for trust than if the people had never been asked for their opinion in the first place.

But, done right, citizens’ assemblies can devolve real power to citizens, they can build trust between the state and the people, they can increase awareness of the complexity of political decision-making and they can reinvigorate our democracy.

Miriam Levin

Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash