Neighbourhoods: Participation and public service cuts

Wednesday, 04 August 2010

Participation and public service cuts

Yesterday I had the privilege of interviewing two north London ward councillors, Alan Stanton and Zena Brabazon, and we found we had a lot of interests and values in common. As I left Alan kindly gave me a copy of a book he had written on co-operative working (Invitation to self management).

Flicking through the pages on the train last night I came across and was struck by the contemporary relevance of this sentence:

'The rhetoric of participation is one part of the public services where no cuts have been made.'

The book was published in 1989, and refers to work that took place before 1986.

4 Aug 2010 16:43:09 | Governance and participation

2 Comments

Kevin,

Please excuse my dimness, but I don't know if I understand the context of the quotation you cite. Is Alan saying that "legitimate" participation only occurs when no cuts have been made. I've seen several on the Left view Big Society as Conservative "cover" for cutting services.

Here in the States - California in particular - where city staffs have been cut by 40% to 50%, officials are looking for ways to provide important services through the cooperation of civil society and business associations. I don't see this as some Right conspiracy to cut services as these decisions have already been made.

Thanks for any help.

Posted by: PN Peterson | Thursday, 05 August 2010 at 05:48

hi PN, thanks for this point. I was simply inviting readers to recognise that the rhetoric of participation is not new, although its volume has increased over the past three decades and perhaps most in the past three months. To me, the logic of involving people in decisions around where cuts have to be made is a no-brainer. But so far I suspect it's still mostly rhetoric. Just yesterday I heard really sad news of a recent community development initiative being completely wiped out, in a southern English town, even though the work going on fits firmly within other parts of the rhetoric, to do with co-production and localism.

I've tried hard not to mention Big Society in recent posts - quite proud of how well I've done in that respect! - but will likely have a few more thoughts to put down in a few days time.

Posted by: Kevin Harris | Thursday, 05 August 2010 at 06:07

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