“Better Things To Do With Our Time? A Conservative Vision of Citizenship”
13 March 2007, Local Government House, Smith Square, London, SW1P 3HZ
Speakers: Rt Hon Oliver Letwin MP, Bill Wiggin MP, Mary Ann Sieghart (The Times) Ben Page (Ipsos-MORI)
Chair: Richard Wilson (Involve)
Ben Page opened the seminar asking “How can we make involvement work?” Page stressed that people do not feel listened to and presented the challenges to good participation. Taking local area forums as a case study, Page noted a gap between high public support for these mechanisms (82%) and individual desire to be involved (26%) and with actual participation levels (2%). Further, Page highlighted the strong correlation between levels of satisfaction with local councils against “feelings of influence”. Furthermore there is a strong correlation between levels of satisfaction and “opportunities for participation”. Page concluded the presentation noting the tensions which could arise in a stronger public realm between a strong public and weak Government but arguing that ultimately Government need to give more responsibility back to people, or persuade them to take it.
Oliver Letwin began by advancing the view that Labour’s overly “managerial approach” to the public sphere was damaging to participation. Giving the example of his own local Primary Care Trust, Letwin argued that focusing on management targets as set by central Government were in fact hampering service delivery. Letwin advanced this position, arguing that the use of consultation in conjunction with this managerial approach limits the impact of individuals to impact on the decisions which affect their lives. He elaborated further, the culture of management directs individual action towards pre-defined outcomes and therefore consulting individuals will at best change the management approach of Government. Letwin argued that a culture shift was needed away from the managerial approach towards the development of frameworks used to better enable individual action but not towards pre-defined outcomes. He stressed that Government must use its tools to create a framework for people to move in a socially desirable direction. Letwin concluded that “people participate when they know it makes a difference”.
Mary Ann Sieghart addressed the issue of participant motivation. Sieghart discussed the extent to which time constraints may determine levels of public participation. She argued that participatory activities tend to demand large time commitments and that this could account for low take up. She iterated that if consultation is to take place that it must be meaningful and be seen to be a good use of individuals’ time, and went on to relate this to her personal experiences of community participation as a participant.
Bill Wiggin concurred with Letwin’s criticism of “managerial government” and argued that individuals would only participate if they felt that it would make a real difference, particularly to their own lives. His key message was that a Conservative government would seek to devolve power to the public in a more effective manner than the current Government, and in doing so to help address difficult issues of voter apathy. Wiggin argued that what appears to be voter apathy was actually public disillusionment with politicians. Low levels of public trust, he argued, are largely due to unreasonable promises being made by Government politicians who then fail to deliver on them.