Our earlier post on local democracy mentioned an up coming government white paper. Thank you to Richard T for pointing out that it has now been published.
Click here:
- to see the Communities & Local Government Press Release
- to access the research behind this proposed legislation
- to access the White Paper, Communities in Control
The press release contains the following summary:
New rights for the public to demand action from their council
Councils will be subject to a new duty to respond to petitions. Petitions will enable local people to force an issue onto a council’s agenda. With enough signatures that issue would need to be discussed by the full council committee and could be subject to a vote. This could be used to raise issues as diverse as bin collections and street cleaning, or the state of local parks.Increasing accountability
Chairs and Chief Executives of local public bodies – such as Councils – will face regular public hearings as part of plans to increase accountability. More visible ‘local question times’ will give the public a chance to question officials about how they are improving public services and demand better results if they believe local services are falling short of expectations. It will also give CEOs an opportunity to describe the hard choices and trade-offs involved in decision making.Getting redress when things go wrong
Some housing associations already offer money back to tenants where they fail to carry repairs out on time. We want to see if this could go further, with redress for citizens when council services go wrong. We will establish a review into redress for citizens that will report in 2009.Giving local people a direct say on how budgets are spent
We want every area of the country to have a ‘community kitty’ scheme – a pot of money that local people can decide how to spend. Local people should have a say in setting priorities for local budgets – for example if they want to see more community wardens or better street lighting. Government Departments are also committed to citizens having a bigger say over youth and community safety spending.£70m Community builders fund
Community-led third sector organisations are one of the most tangible and popular ways people get involved and start to actively give something back to their local communities. The Government will be investing £70m in organisations that are the backbone of their communities. This will help strong community groups acquire buildings, take a role in running local services, and become more financially self sustainable.Local people running local assets
Street markets, community centres and swimming pools will be handed over to local residents if they can do a better job of running them than councils. 30 new pilots will get underway shortly and a new Asset Transfer Unit will be established to support community groups making the most of buildings and resources.Making it easier for people to get a directly elected mayor
Mayors provide visible local leadership and have the potential to engage more people in politics. We will consult on allowing on-line petitioning as well as paper petitions to be counted towards support for a referendum for a mayor. We will consult on reducing the number of people needed to trigger a referendum from 5 per cent to perhaps 2 per cent, 3 per cent or 4 per cent and change existing rules that mean no referendum can be held for 10 years if referendum is lost.Promoting democracy
A new duty will be placed on local authorities to promote democracy. Local leaders will be expected to do more to help residents understand how the democratic process works and how they can get involved. Residents can expect to see information campaigns and town halls being opened up to councillors to hold surgeries. New ‘civic champions’ – council staff or former councillors who will go out into the community and work with residents and community groups to increase understanding about how they can raise awareness about civic roles they can take up – whether that’s volunteering, standing as a governor, a councillor or becoming a magistrate.Empowering young people
More needs to be done to make politics and local services relevant and open to young people. We will establish a programme for young people to shadow government ministers and elected mayors, develop a programme of internships with local councillors and increase the number of young people who help councils and others understand the impact of their policies on the young.
This should be excellent news for strong communities like Parwich. We have invited our MP, the County Council, our District Councilor and the Peak District National Park Authority to either respond by email or add their comments here.
PARWICH.ORG 
My first reaction is: £70M, can we get our hands on any of that?
Thank you to Jim Dixon, The Chief Executive of the Peak District National Park Authority for the following response:
I welcome the Parwich initiative and I am sure there is much to welcome in the Government’s new White paper on Community Empowerment, although I confess to not having read it all yet. The National Park Authority wishes to work closely with all of the communities in the National Park and welcomes the opportunity to comment on your new site. We have a history of working closely with the community on a number of village improvements, indeed Parwich is one of the projects that is cited as an example on our own Community Planning pages:
http://www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/index/living-in/community/projects/p-parwich.htm
Inevitably, when there are live planning applications, as there is for example at the Memorial Hall, there will be many different views. We welcome hearing these views and welcome the use of the new site to inform people in Parwich of proposed developments and potentially allowing their voice to be heard. Can I also remind you of the many ways in which people can find out about planning cases and how they can make their views heard. Details of this are at:
http://www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/index/living-in/planning.htm
Finally, a couple of names. Our ranger who covers Parwich in the South Area Team is Lynn Burrow (Lynn.Burrow@peakdistrict.gov.uk). Our Parish member who covers Parwich is Chris Carr (Christopher.Carr@peakdistrict.gov.uk).
Jim Dixon
Chief Executive
Thank you to Andrew Lewer, Derbyshire County Councillor, for the following considered response emailed to us earlier today:
E-mails are coming in almost as fast as I can answer them and so many of my replies today are rather brief. However, yours gave me a chance to clarify my own views on this important White Paper and so here they are, in some detail.
I would offer the following bullet point notes in turn to the ‘headline’ issues you put in your web-page on the ‘Communities In Control’ White Paper. I stress these are my personal views and not necessarily the settled policy positions of either DCC or DDDC:
New Rights to Demand Action – DCC already has a procedure whereby any petition signed by more than 10 households must be the subject of a properly written up paper presented by Officers to a Cabinet Committee meeting / DDDC will take a question from any member of the public to a Policy Committee and the Chairman (me in the case of Community and Environment) will answer it; research is provided by Officers and follow up with the member of the public in question, as necessary.
Increasing Accountability – This is an area where DCC could improve, though I would acknowledge geographical difficulties / DDDC’s Community Forums are attended by the Chief Executive in 80% of cases and by senior Directors if not, plus the Leader (Cllr Rose) and / or Deputy Leader and / or Policy Chairmen (Cllr Spencer and myself); all may be asked questions direct.
Redress – DCC & DDDC do have some mechanisms in place for redress, both internally and via the Local Government Ombudsman; both Councils await further detail from the Government on this one.
Direct Say on Budgets – Devolving decision making ‘downwards’ is a theme of all three main parties at present, but Local Authorities notice a greater willingness on the part of Government to devolve the powers of other bodies down rather than their own.
Community Builders Fund – I expect most, if not all, of this to go in an urban direction and £70,000,000 divided between over 40,000,000 people may not go as far as it sounds like it would at first glance.
Local Assets – If a Council is close to its people and listening to them then it is doing what they want and therefore, in a real sense, local people are already managing these assets. People elect Councillors and greater freedom for Councillors to do what their voters want instead of what Government Departments and Quangos want would achieve this goal much more effectively.
Directly Elected Mayors – These could (I stress could!) be more effective in an urban setting. Also, the Government has not provided any mechanism for the people to say they do NOT want an Elected Mayor and to have a referendum to go back to a traditional Council model. We do not like the idea of a directly elected Prime Minister in this country, so why a directly elected local leader? Would MPs be very keen on a similar model of impotent non-decision making as the one they seem to be pointing to for Councillors?
Promoting Democracy – Fine sentiments, but again a top down prescription that may not reflect local circumstances.
Empowering Young People – DCC has set up District Forums for young people to run alongside the County-wide one, but there is concern that only certain County Cllrs will have the interaction with youth that is required to make the programme relevant; if it becomes a one party exercise then it will not work. On a more personal note I have just been to all of my Primary Schools (9 in the Ashbourne Division) to take Assembly and talk about Councillors and local government in general. I also get as involved with Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School (my old school) as possible, in Sixth Form Debates, Year 10 Local Democracy Days, and presentations to Year 9 Geography classes etc. / DDDC did recently host a Local Democracy Day at QEGS and the Council tries hard to work with local young people when it can, but at present it has financial capacity problems that make achieving this goal more difficult than it would like.
I hope the above comments are helpful. Could I also please ask you to push the Southern Area Community Forum at 7pm on 28th July at St Oswald’s Church Hall (Chaired by me)? Senior Officers and Members from DDDC, DCC, Police, Fire and Peak Park will be present to discuss Civil Parking, the Ashbourne Partnership and ANY other topic that those attending wish to see discussed.