On Wednesday I went to a conference in London on the topic of community engagement...at least I think that was what it was about! It was run by the Improvement and Development Agency which is part of the Local Government Association and which ‘works’ with local councils to ‘improve performance’. In my experience this really decodes as spreading central government propaganda at your expense. The conference was entitled: Future Communities/ Future engagement.
I went because I was keen to find out what Babergh and I can do better to reach out to people in the District who don’t go to meetings but might be encouraged to, or who might want to let us know what they think in some other way. I am not sure I came away any the wiser.
There is a real confusion between the concepts of community engagement and community empowerment, a confusion that was not resolved at the conference. It is one thing as an elected representative to make sure that one engages with the people that have elected you, but, in my view it is something quite other to cede the decision making powers of elected representatives to the community as a whole (or at least those members of the community who shout the loudest). The idea of community empowerment was very close to the heart of Hazel Blears (remember her?), and it is clear that remnants of her enthusiasm remain with the current lot. We moved seamlessly from engagement to empowerment in the course of the day, to the point where we were being asked whether there was any need for elected councils at all. (You may well think not of course!)
As a Russian scholar, I am reminded immediately of the Bolshevik call for ‘all power to the Soviets’ (The word Soviet roughly translates as local party committee, but can be taken to mean ‘the people’ in a wider sense.) In Soviet Russia the call to empower people with this different sort of ‘democracy’ actually meant an awful lot more concentration of power at the centre!
Anyway I spend a happy day surrounded by a few fellow councillors from around the country and an awful lot of very pleasant and intelligent local government officers with titles like ‘Service Development Lead Specialist’, Locality services Area Co-ordinator’ ‘Localities officer’ ‘Engagement officer’ etc. etc. Most had spent a happy night at their council tax payers’ expense in the rather elegant central London hotel at which the conference was held.
I hasten to reassure readers that since the conference was ‘free’, and I was in London anyway, my attendance cost Babergh nothing, but I fear that the taxpayer was probably picking up quite a hefty bill overall.
Surely this sort of nonsensical event represents one of the last gasps of this over-bureaucratic, over-meddling, over-spending Government?
