Local Democracy: a Week, a Year, Hundreds of Years
By Natalia Motili, John Smith Fellow
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government”, Thomas Jefferson
For the UK it already became a tradition to organise each year in October “Local Democracy Week”. This initiative was launched for the first time in 1998 by the Local Government Association and since then it has been organised yearly for 8 years. This year's activities of the “Local Democracy Week” are planned for October as well and will take place in the period October 16-20, 2006.
The Local Government Association (LGA) was created in 1997 to promote better local government. Vision of the LGA is local government that enables local people to shape a distinctive and better future for their communities. Association represents English and Welsh local authorities – a total of just under 500 authorities that comprise over 50 million people.
“Local Democracy Week” is a national campaign that aims to improve image of the local authorities and to create additional opportunities for citizens to be involved in and to contribute to changing situation in their communities.
Every year the “Local Democracy Week” campaign has a special theme, focused on diverse aspects of local democracy. For example, in 1999 the motto of the campaign was “Local Democracy – in Action”. In 2000 the accent was put on “Local Leadership, Local Choice”. Due to low election turnout from the previous years, LGA proposed as a theme for 2001 “Elections Matter”. Theme of 2002 campaign was “The Communicating Council” - local councils were encouraged to involve citizens more actively in the local democratic processes through various consultations and other forms of two-way communication. The 2003 campaign was concentrated on involving youth in decision-making process at the local and national level – “Listening to tomorrow’s voters today”. It was the year when relationship among the councils and the youth organisations got strengthened. In 2004 campaign motivated citizens – “Make Your Mark”. In 2005, after success accumulated during the previous years, the campaign was enlarged and for the first time was proclaimed “Local Democracy Year”. Its role was to clarify the role of the local authorities in society and to raise awareness of local government among youth and other “harder to reach” groups, such as emigrants.
The theme of 2006 campaign is “Take Part, Take Power”. The campaign is oriented to youth, with the aim to involve youth more actively in community life and to use at maximum potential of youth in the local decision-making process. The campaign will encourage youth and local councils to work more tightly and to share ideas and best practices. Among the partners of 2006 campaign are National Youth Agency, UK Youth Parliament and British Youth Council that united their efforts to prepare a campaign with a strong impact among young people.
Every year before the launch of campaign, the LGA prepares a pack of materials that are sent to all authorities interested in taking part in the campaign, to provide them assistance in preparing activities at the local level. Members of the Association receive informational bulletins that provide useful information related to the campaign. Among the activities that are organized at the local level in the frames of the campaign “Local Democracy Week” can be mentioned various activities oriented towards promoting democracy among the public officials and citizens, such as meetings with council members, interviews at TV and radio, open offices, guided tours, shadowing local public officials, exhibitions in public places, launching interactive web-sites, hot-lines, service satisfaction surveys, signing democracy charters, presenting local strategies or collecting opinions for amending existing strategies and many other activities. LGA annually collects examples from different authorities organising the campaign at the local level with the aim of making them known to other interested authorities. LGA launched a special website dedicated to the “Local Democracy Week” campaign which offers information about past and planned campaigns: (http://campaigns.lga.gov.uk/localdemocracy/home/).
Besides the local activities, every year the LGA organises a national conference dedicated to the theme of the campaign. The conference is open to local and central authorities, mass-media, non-governmental sector. During the conference results of the research, success stories and other materials related to the conference theme are presented.
Every year at the end of the campaign an evaluation takes place, based on surveys completed by the authorities that took part in the campaign. Results of the surveys allow LGA to prepare more efficient campaign for the next year. The month of October was not selected by chance for “Local Democracy Week”, but also as a result of proposals from the behalf of authorities.
Among the benefits of being involved in the activities of the “Local Democracy Week” campaign local authorities mention the following: raising the profile of local authorities with the public and mass-media, discovering weak points in the activities of local councils, opportunity to collect new ideas for improved public services, launching new activities which otherwise would not take place and other.
There are various indicators that define success of the “Local Democracy Week” campaign. One of them is the fact that this campaign takes place almost 10 years consecutively. Another proof of success is the fact that more and more authorities get actively involved in the campaign. Thus, in 1999 more than 289 authorities from England and Wales took part in the “Local Democracy Week” (70% of authorities). In 2004 the number of involved authorities increased to more than 350. “Local Democracy Week” attracted attention not only of the authorities from Wales and England, but also of the authorities from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland, Falkland Islands and even from Uganda and Bahrain, that took over the experience of the “Local Democracy Week” with the aim of contributing to improvement of local democracies in their communities.
According to the opinions of the participants in the “Local Democracy Week”, it is not only a publicity campaign for local authorities: “Local Democracy Week” is a wake-up call for all those involved in decision-making process and in the same time an excellent opportunity to change things. John Smith, leader of the Labour Party till his death in 1994, was convinced that “There is so much of good that can be done if we seize the opportunities which a modern world makes available...”. He also considered that “We are the architects of the 21st century ... and if we are to provide a blueprint for a better future, we must be ready to change and to think how things could be different”. And “Local Democracy Week” comes exactly in support of these ideas. This campaign allows more active involvement of citizens in decision-making process, that affects their everyday life and in this way the campaign offers opportunity for citizens to change things for better in their communities. In this regard campaign helps to understand more clearly what does locally democracy really mean.
If in a state with hundreds of years of democracy, as it is the United Kingdom, almost ten years consecutively have been organised activities oriented for improving democracy at the local level, then so called “young democracies” like Moldova have to put even stronger efforts for promoting democracy in their communities, what is a proof of good governance.
Natalia Motili
The views expressed in this article represent the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Smith Memorial Trust.