Community involvement UK news

From Sustainable Community Action

Community involvement global and by place Portal - news - forum - A-Z UK - news - resources / USA - Canada / cities

Comment 2009 Great council websites aren’t enough. We need 1% for open data. 13 October 2009 [1] September 2009 32 per cent of respondents were involved (through membership or regular donations) with at least one of 15 selected major third sector organisations concerned with the environment, compared with 42 per cent in 2007. [2] A sizeable decline in a short time. Contrast this decline with the growth of alternatives which tend to be much more participatory, such as Transition towns or Project Dirt for example. July 10, 2009 Gov 2.0 documentary "Us Now" on telly, More4, 11.10pm, or online anytime. Highly recommended, Philralph @sca21 16:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC) Restore confidence in consultations first?: Restoring confidence in local democracy Communities and Local Government, July 2, 2009 / Twitter 19 ways to make the UK more sustainable. Sustainable Development Commission identifies 19 "Breakthrough ideas", including "Mobilising collective action – scaling up the active networks and organisations for change blossoming around the UK, including the Transition towns network, Green Voice, and South London’s Project Dirt", July 1 [3] Lipservice and localism, June 29 [4] Place Survey - based on more than 500,000 people's views and perceptions about where they live - demonstrates the importance of listening to local people and what they want for their local area, Communities Secretary John Denham, June 23 [5] Less than half of people say they are satisfied with their local council. Only a quarter of people feel they can influence local decisions, as many again would like to be more involved. "Another idea is to take the key themes of Transition towns - communities thinking about the future and taking action to deal with big issues - and apply this to the way central and local government work with communities. The role of government should not be to dictate ("I'm a bureaucrat and I know what's best for you") but to facilitate - to provide communities with resources and support" May 30 [6]. / Sounds like Local Agenda 21 before the government ditched it in favour of bureacrat dominated community planning? Philralph @sca21 17:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Wipe that tear, Hazel dear, from your eye, June 3 [7] / Comment on CLG action plan for community empowerment Please tweet for service, June 2 [8] Engage society in the transition, International Scientific Congress on Climate Change, March 2009 [9] Pushing policy instead of politics - and listening to the conversation, Local democracy. Paul Evans, argues for "policy discussion groups" ..." using collaborative filtering media to identify information of interest, isolate the useful data, and present it in a way that local councillors can use it" / BarcampUKGovweb09 2008 "The best mechanism to confront the challenge of climate change are not market mechanisms, but conscious, motivated, and well organized human beings endowed with an identity of their own." Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia, November 28, 2008 "...his (Obama's) only real hope in dealing with the tremendous challenges the country (world) faces will be to harness the collective ingenuity of citizens on a massive scale. In other words, he must enlist a level of participation in generating and acting on innovative solutions that has no obvious parallel in history." Anthony D. Williams, wikinomics, November 7 2008 / topic, topic "People power can beat climate change", Lord David Puttnam, October 28 [10] topic, topic, forum A Wiki for the Planet: Clay Shirky on Open Source Environmentalism, wired.com, August 20, 2008 "We're going to look at every place that a reader or a listener or a viewer or a user has been locked out, has been served up passive or a fixed or a canned experience, and ask ourselves, "If we carve out a little bit of the cognitive surplus and deploy it here, could we make a good thing happen?" And I'm betting the answer is yes." Clay Shirky at a Web 2.0 conference, April 23, 2008. / Inspiring Quotes 2, topic 2007 "Government must do more to help people take green action", FoE, August 24 [11] Your comment - Contribute via our Forums or a comment type article, or on any article via its talk page - click on discussion tab at top of page

2009

• For the first time councils will be expected to respond to petitions and tell residents what action is going to be taken to address their concerns, 2 December ^[12] A survey by the LGA found that only 28 per cent of councils guarantee an automatic response to petitions.

• Government to consult on proposals to make data from Ordnance Survey freely available so it can be used for digital innovation and to support democratic accountability, 17 November ^[13] Data relating to electoral and local authority boundaries as well as postcode areas would be released for free re-use, including commercially. Mid-scale digital mapping information would also be released in the same way. The Government will be running a public consultation on the proposals from December and any change would be implemented from April 2010. The highest-specification Ordnance Survey products and services - such as those used by property developers or the utility companies - would be charged for on a cost-reflective basis.

• Legal threat closes postcode feed. Websites that help people find jobs or hospitals have been hit by legal action threatened by the Royal Mail. October 6 ^[14] "...in effect a tax on innovation.” Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group ^[15] See Community involvement UK for details of petition.

• UK government invites developers to show government how to get the future public data site right - how to find and use public sector information, September 30 ^[16]

• In the past year only 3 to 4 per cent had been involved in an actual decision affecting their community and less than a third (32 per cent) were aware of how to go about getting involved, September 23 ^[17]

• House of Lords Committee report on how to create better connections between people and Parliament, July 15 ^[18]

• Government outline next steps in their Power of Information programme. Minister announces plans for an overhaul of Crown Copyright rules that will make it easier for citizens to re-use Government information. May 7 ^[19] “They say information is power, but only distributed information is truly empowering. That's why the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) [External website] has looked again at the restrictions of Crown Copyright, and now a licence will automatically be granted to anyone wanting to use the information rather than having to apply beforehand." Tom Watson MP topic

• Local Government Minister John Healey writes to Council Chief Execs encouraging them to do all they can to support BIG LUNCH events in their area including giving the thumbs up to street closures and making dealing with any technical matters as smooth and straightforward as possible, April 24 ^[20] To find out if there is a BIG LUNCH already organized in your area or for tips and information on how to organise your own street party visit www.thebiglunch.com

• 'Big Energy Shift' consultation contains 3 "invitation only" events, yet prefaced with "We intend these to be... open consultation processes..." February 12 ^[21]

• Only 39 per cent of people feel they can influence decisions affecting their local area. 22 per cent feel they could influence decisions affecting Great Britain, January 29 ^[22] Both measures remain unchanged since 2007/08 but both have fallen since 2001. These findings come from the Citizenship Survey: April - September 2008 (covering the first two quarters of data from the 2008-09 survey).

Community involvement UK news 2009 - 2008 - 2007, 2006 and 2005

Ideas Bank - Climate change - Environmental wellbeing - Social wellbeing - Economic wellbeing - Transport and Planning - Local sustainability - Community involvement - Global connections - Personal options - Ideas Bank by place - Village pump

SCA Wiki - Places, projects & networks - Ideas Bank - News - Diary - Resources - Community Portal / Avoid ads

References

1. ↑ Mash the State, 13 October 2009
2. ↑ Communities and Local Government, September 23, 2009
3. ↑ Sustainable Development Commission, July 1, 2009
4. ↑ Living with rats, June 29, 2009
5. ↑ Communities and Local Government, June 23, 2009
6. ↑ The Strategist, May 30, 2009
7. ↑ Living with rats, June 3, 2009
8. ↑ Living with rats, June 2, 2009
9. ↑ University of Copenhagen, March 12 2009
10. ↑ BBC News, October 28
11. ↑ Friends of the Earth August 24
12. ↑ Communities and Local Government, 2 December 2009
13. ↑ Communities and Local Government, 17 November 2009
14. ↑ BBC news, October 6, 2009
15. ↑ Open Rights Group, October 5, 2009
16. ↑ cabinetoffice.gov.uk, Digital Engagement Blog, September 30, 2009
17. ↑ Communities and Local Government, September 23, 2009
18. ↑ UK Parliament, July 15, 2009
19. ↑ Cabinet Office, May 7, 2009
20. ↑ Communities and Local Government, April 24, 2009
21. ↑ Department of Energy and Climate Change, February 12
22. ↑ Communities and Local Government, January 29