Community participation - Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Community participation
One symbolic proposal that would very practically help to build new kinds of
connections would be for more participants for governance roles to be recruited by
lottery, with training and financial support to encourage those selected to take up
their position. This would have a number of benefits. First, we know that mobilisation,
and how people are asked to participate, are crucial. This would be a way to
personally invite people who otherwise might never have thought of it to participate.
It would send a clear signal that participation in governance really is an option for
anyone. Second, it would grow the pool from which community governors are drawn,
especially if a significant proportion (say a third) of participants were chosen in this
way. Third, it would bring into participation people who had different social
connections from those who typically get involved, giving them the capacity to
mobilise and reach into parts of the community others could not, potentially bringing
new voices into formal governance arenas.
Trusting participation intelligently
Many policy makers are still profoundly distrustful of community participation and its
capacity to deliver effectively and legitimately, despite the emphasis that has been
placed on its importance. We need to be honest about that and design approaches
that allow them to gradually develop trust in the process as the cultures of
participation around new governance structures strengthen and become more
resilient. But we also need to recognise that, the more power a governance structure
is perceived to wield, the more attractive it is to potential participants. Seeing a
direct, tangible impact from participation is a big incentive to get involved, yet this is
one of the things governance structures have generally been poor at showing. That
means delegating more potent decision-making powers to community participation
structures, at the same time as growing the legitimacy of those structures in
exercising them.
One practical way to model this approach would be by reshaping funding streams.
Rather than being given hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds in single
chunks, NDC partnerships and other community participation structures should be
given geometric funding streams – small pots of money that then double at regular
intervals (say every six months). This would allow partnerships to grow in confidence
and effectiveness, and to tolerate a more experimental approach to spending money.
Unlike ‘earned autonomy’, it lowers the stakes attached to devolving power without
patronising those whose power it was in the first place.
56