Community Leadership - and the consultation con

Just spent 1.30 to 5.30 looking at Community Leadership in Egypt Mill, Nailsworth - what is it and how can we be more effective - a course put on for District councillors and had a number of useful ideas including looking at a particular case study. The independent consultants, who run the course for many councils, said they'd not had such a quick and bright group as us - but we still had things to learn - many issues were raised like the balance between leading and taking account of various groups - to me for example the Council should be leading on climate change but that wouldn't necessarily be what came out of consultations...

...we also looked at how we related to public - consultation is getting a bad name - too often people are "consulted" then ignored if their views don't coincide with those running the consultation - witness the national GM consultation or health cuts like Weavers Croft - indeed I mentioned Fairford Parish Council who have a motion requesting not to be consulted unless their views were going to be taken seriously! Parish Council's are too often ignored - especially on planning issues - and how can an unelected inspector override our Council's Local plan?

As a councillor I am overloaded with consultations - and can't imagine how the public are meant to engage with them all - indeed I have to ask what is the point of electing representatives at considerable cost to represent local views and then go out to consultation on anything important - it is like keeping a dog and barking yourself! Of course there are also issues re preconsultation information, how the questions are phrased and how the results are interpreted - all giving more power to certain people and undermining democracy - no wonder voter turn-out is low in local elections.

Having said all that Westminister seems to have understood there is a problem - lets hope they come up with solutions that really give communities more powers - similarly Stroud District Council is better than many....the Environment Green paper for example is now out for consultation - it doesn't in my view fit well with what we learnt today about consultations but nevertheless I believe strongly that it is a genuine attempt to get people's views on this area - read more re my comments by looking at our initial response which can be found under Reports on the Green party website.

Talking of the Environment Green paper that was where I have just been - a Green party meeting to look at how we can help create realistic targets and actions that really could make Stroud a green leader - more of those another time!