We are curating a thought leadership series about opportunities for participatory and deliberative processes in a shifting political landscape following the 2024 general election.
This will inevitably be a time of change — and we want to take this chance to think about some of the key issues, tensions and arguments that surround deliberative and participatory democracy in the UK and beyond.
📖 Read our first blog, titled: ‘New government — new relationship between everyday people and the state?’ by Carly Walker-Dawson, our Director of Capacity Building and Standards, and Calum Green, our Director of Advocacy and Communications.
So, we’ve got a new government. And a new government means new opportunities. But what are the opportunities for all of us — people from different walks of life, right across the UK — to play a greater role in determining the future of our lives, our communities and our country?
This blog takes a look at Labour’s manifesto, to find some of those opportunities. From Local Growth Plans to the NHS waiting times, New Deal for Working People to a new approach to our buses, it looks at how those opportunities are described by the new government in their own words. And, it looks at how we might deliver on these opportunities, and put people in the UK at the heart of how decisions are made by this new government in the years to come.
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Opportunity 1 - Local Growth Plans
Labour has announced 'Local Growth Plans' — the requirement for combined authorities to work together to identify economic clusters and build on their local advantages. It will require working with key actors in the area to form ‘long-term plans that identify growth sectors and put in place programmes and infrastructure they need to thrive.’ This idea has been created around what Labour HQ sees as early signs of success around devolution, such as The Greater Manchester Strategy, West Yorkshire’s Business Board, and London’s recently announced plan to create 150,000 jobs in London by 2028. But other examples suggest that creating a greater role for the public can unlock the potential for growth that both benefits local people and contributes to national prosperity. Whether it is Preston showing that prioritising local actors over inward investment can not only deliver economic success, but even improve the mental health of residents, or Wigan applying the significant successes through its’ Wigan Deal — which helped save £25m on adult social care — to economic growth, there are an increasing number of examples for how to harness local ideas, energy and experience to deliver economic success.
At Involve, we’ve been working with UKRI and others on how to help place-based partnerships develop plans for local economic growth with the public. We will be bringing in our expertise in community engagement, working with academic partners in four localities to put communities at the heart of the levelling up agenda. Everyday people need to be involved in solving issues that will move the UK towards sustainable economic growth and equitable cultural recovery — an example of a new, collaborative way of doing policy making. As Starmer said in his first press conference when talking about moving power out of Westminster, it’s about ‘people with skin in the game knowing what's best for their communities’.
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Opportunity 2 - NHS Waiting Times
People care about the NHS. Like, really care. As the NHS celebrated its 75th birthday last year, the NHS remains British citizens’ biggest source of national pride. Our pride is underpinned by healthcare being free at the point of use and paid for via taxes, and that healthcare is equally accessible to all. This is despite the majority of people feeling like the NHS is not prepared for future challenges such as meeting the demands of an ageing population and future pandemics. In his first days as prime minister, Starmer has repeatedly said the NHS is ‘broken’ due to the political failings of the last government. To fix the NHS, there will be some key trade offs that need to be decided on.
In our work at Involve, we often find that public engagement can challenge what decision makers think is possible, especially on big issues — for example politicians consistently underestimate people’s support for bold climate policies. Restoring the NHS to its former glory is a huge opportunity. And we see it as an opportunity for a flagship UK-wide deliberative process on the NHS, in a similar vein to Climate Assembly UK for net zero or Ireland's 2016-2018 Citizens’ Assembly for abortion. Such a process would give legitimacy to decision making on an issue so close to our people’s hearts. What else do we in the UK hold so dearly?
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Opportunity 3 - New Deal for Working People
Starmer made it clear in no uncertain terms that economic growth is his number one ambition in his first press conference following the general election. The new government’s plan to ‘kickstart economic growth’ is no mean feat — especially when the state of play that they’re inheriting is that the everyday person has been left with £10,200 less to spend or save on average since 2010 than if the economy had grown at pre-2010 trends. Economic growth for the new government means ‘being pro-business and pro-worker’ and being ‘the party of wealth creation’. One of the levers to achieve this is the ‘New Deal for Working People’. Ambitious, speedy and collaborative, this policy includes banning exploitative zero hours contracts, ending fire and rehire, and making sure the minimum wage is a genuine living wage. The government has committed to both introducing legislation within 100 days and consulting ‘fully’ with businesses, workers and civil society, as well as trade unions. Creating a new deal that works for all of these people and sectors is a timely and necessary step to make lives tangibly better.
At Involve, we’ve worked with lived experience groups to co-design solutions to in-work poverty and to set out the Scottish Government’s commitment to develop a minimum income guarantee. But how would we do meaningful consultation in such a pressed timeframe? A combination of an advanced tool for online discourse like Polis, teamed up with a series of deliberative workshops via an four-nation roadshow could be one option. Think of the battle bus but better — a roadshow for economic growth.
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Opportunity 4 - Buses!
Speaking of buses and building on work done by some Metro Mayors, the new government wants to reform our broken bus systems. How? By giving ‘new powers for local leaders to franchise local bus services’, and by lifting the ‘ban on municipal ownership.’ Improvement to bus services is desperately needed — bus services have been cut by more than 80% in the past 15 years in some parts of England and Wales. Building a better bus system is a fantastic opportunity for local and regional governments to work hand in glove with local people — ensuring a new bus system is effective and fair.
At Involve, we worked with local residents and the Greater Cambridge Partnership to set up a citizens’ assembly on congestion, air quality and public transport. 53 local people, who reflected the local population, came together to hear balanced evidence, engage with trade offs and form recommendations that the Partnership responded to and, where appropriate, took forward. Similar process could be replicated across England and Wales to ensure a new approach to buses delivers what people need.
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These 4 opportunities are just the beginning…
These four examples are all specific opportunities already identified by the new government that could immediately benefit from including a greater role for the everyday person; and ensuring a robust, fair, transparent and effective public participation processes And this is only a flavour — we can also see opportunities for GB Energy, rebuilding trust in the police, Royal Mail governance and more. The new government could enable people to be part of something greater. The challenges facing the country are daunting; public services are near or in the midst of collapse, many people are in profoundly difficult circumstances, and the public do not trust politicians to sort things out. Rebuilding the country and trust will require difficult decisions, and taking the public along on that journey will be hard. The importance of standards in government have been repeated time and time again by Starmer — these standards should be set, upheld and scrutinised by the public, as well as a new independent ethics watchdog. The government needs to work with the public — people and state working together — to create the mandate for change. We need to harness the ideas, the energy and the experiences of every person in the UK if we’re to make the changes so many desperately need.
And that includes making sure the no.3 bus turns up on time.
>> This is part of our 10 Opportunities for the first 100 Days series.