Better Local Politics
How can we Build Back Better? By building bridges between normal people and local decision makers
How can we include the public more in decisions that are made by local government? How can we improve the tone of public conversation about change, especially at the local level?
These are really difficult questions! It’s hard stuff! Oxford City Council has led the way on new ways of working with the Citizen’s Assembly on Climate Change, which have been widely celebrated. How can we build on this to make better public engagement with local politics the new norm? Despite the years of funding cuts to local authorities I do believe it is possible to have better ways of involving the public, which is essential to better local politics.
People feel powerless
You just need to read a few comments on Facebook or Twitter whenever any local changes are proposed (whether around cutting congestion, building new houses or anything about local business) to see the number of disaffected, angry people who feel left out of the conversation. People feel they’re not listened to. People feel powerless. This leads to anger and cynicism.
I don’t blame them for their emotion! People, in general, are pretty powerless, when it comes to influencing local (let alone national) decisions. We only have elections every few years. The 20th century system of how votes are calculated doesn’t do a very good job of actually representing what people want (#MakeVotesMatter), and the only ways to engage in local political decisions are through incredibly boring, often uninformative online consultations or through social media threads which are metaphorical shouting matches that make everyone feel horrible. To engage with the system in the proper way, there are huge levels of bureaucracy to wade through and very little transparency about how to get involved, so it’s very difficult to even know where to start! It’s no wonder the councils barely ever have members of the public engage with them.
Engaging with the local system
We need to create new spaces for people to have well-informed, positive, and meaningful conversations about how we can improve our society. And those conversations need to have teeth — they should lead to change.
I think this should start at the local level. We can and should create better ways of enabling the public to influence decisions that are made by local councils. To do it, we should follow the principles of design thinking and behavioural science:
- meet people where they are at and
- make it as easy, attractive and sociable as possible to engage
Better Oxford Campaign
These are the principles we applied in the Build Back Better local hub this summer. In response to national government putting forward money for local councils to redesign public spaces, we ran a campaign called Better Oxford to cut congestion through central Oxford and redesign spaces for people, with a focus on healthier travel and better air quality. This will have huge social justice and climate justice benefits if it happens, reducing health inequalities and reducing our CO2 output as a city. As part of the campaign, we held a Better Oxford pop-up exhibition in a disused shop in the centre of Oxford. We worked with local transport experts, campaign groups, artists and architects to create images of what a Better Oxford could look like. We asked everyone who attended to contribute their thoughts, ideas and priorities and we interviewed as many people as we could on video, sharing these on Twitter. To pull together what people who came to the pop-up said, we made a short video of it! Also, you could see this video of a discussion we had with local MP Anneliese Dodds about the Better Oxford campaign and the full analysis here: “Better Oxford: What does the public think?”
A positive approach
From the outset, we led with a positive and hopeful vision for the future and we gave as many opportunities as possible for people to engage and say what they thought. This overwhelmingly brought out the best in people! Ideas of inclusivity came to the fore. What is best for children and future generations was prioritised. People put forward ideas that are really beneficial for the local ecology, climate, community and health. I find this hugely hopeful! It shows that people look beyond their own short term interest to what was better in the long term and what was better for others. Everyone is capable of this show of empathy and prioritisation of longer term benefits when engaging in conversations about change. We just need to create the space for those ideas to be heard.
And what about those people who came in to the pop up angry? Many left as supporters of the proposals. And if not, most were friendly and more open minded than they were when they arrived. Why? We listened to them. We gave them space to be heard.
The Better Oxford campaign was a huge success in public participation. The Bus Gates survey Oxfordshire County Council ran received 7,200 responses, which is about seven times more than they were expecting. It was so many that County Council have hired a market research firm to do the analysis. Huge numbers of people have been engaged with the ideas of cutting congestion and redesigning Oxford’s public spaces for people. I believe it’s because there was a hopeful vision put forward, multiple ways to get involved, and people had the feeling that this change is possible and they can influence it.
Ideas to take forward
Having run the pop-up and the Better Oxford campaign, to improve local democracy and public involvement, I am convinced we need more exercises and processes that are like this. In their design, they should include:
- A hopeful and positive vision for the future
- As many images as possible
- Listening as the highest priority
- Giving people agency through giving as many ways as possible to engage and contribute
- Behavioural and design principles: make it easy, attractive and social to get involved
Why does this work?
Behavioural scientists and anthropologists have studied humans across multiple cultures and found 10 key fundamental value drivers that exist in all humans, summarised here in Doughnut Economics. Depending on what story we’re told and how arguments are framed, different segments of our internal drivers resonate within us. If we want people to be in their ‘Openness to Change’ mindset, we should resonate ‘stimulation’ (e.g. with images), ‘hedonism’ (e.g. a positive vision) and ‘self-direction’ (e.g. by listening, giving agency and opportunities for engagement).
Learning from this diagram, we should also try to appeal to people’s drivers of universalism and benevolence (e.g. ideas of fairness and that these things are good for everyone).
Is it feasible to do?
The biggest barrier to new ways of working is the fear that it costs a lot. But, is it too expensive to work in this way? We don’t think so! Financially, we all did it all as volunteers — with an expenditure of only a few hundred pounds. The energy is out there amongst the public to get involved, we just need to build more bridges between people and politics to create more ways to get involved. Build it and they will come!
So what next?
This means advancing our idea of consultation. Personally, I would throw out the word ‘consultation’ altogether and replace it with ‘participation’. When people feel agency and ownership that comes from participating in the creation of something, we feel far more attached to it and think far more positively towards the change. That means looking more seriously at Citizen’s Assemblies, co-production, co-design, and deliberative democracy as the new norm for how local authorities work with the public.
Perhaps the councils (Oxford City and Oxfordshire County) could use a shop in town to create a permanent exhibition space where people can come to see ideas, proposals and contribute in person? Perhaps we can use imagery and videos as default to engage people? Perhaps we can use more digital tools for presenting ideas and receiving feedback?
There’s lots of energy in the public to make change. We need better ways of channelling that energy into hopeful and positive action.
If you want to find out more, see this video with local MP Anneliese Dodds about the Better Oxford campaign and the write-up about what the public thinks! You can get involved in the Build Back Better local hub with future campaigns by emailing: oxfordgreennewdeal@gmail.com or by following @OxBackBetter on Twitter
