Aug 11, 2015 | Community Governance, Deliberative, Local government, Participatory budgeting
Nobody would pretend the insistent and persistent don’t influence local government. At a council meeting you see the lady in the front row you saw at the last meeting, and at the one before that. She takes out her crochet. You put a strategy out to consultation and...
Jul 7, 2015 | Citizens' juries, Deliberative, Local government, Participatory budgeting, Planning
How many times have you heard this old maxim? They don’t know what local government does. A maxim does express a general truth, but the good news is you can disrupt the general truth from time to time, to make the most of great opportunities. Disruptive...
Jun 23, 2015 | Citizens' juries, Deliberative, Local government, Participatory budgeting, Planning
You want to be sure it’s the right decision to run a participatory budgeting jury. It’s a big thing. You want the stars to be aligned, in all the constellations: the senior executive team, the councillors and managers. They may be champions of the approach...
Feb 12, 2015 | Citizen committees, Community development, Deliberative, Local government, People, place & governance, Walking
Right now there’s a council officer out there battling with a squeaky wheel. I know this from my research on local government committees, where their role was a frequent theme. The officer is usually acting in the context of strategy and plans. The committee...
Sep 17, 2014 | Community Engagement, Deliberative, Local government, Participatory budgeting, Sustainability, Terms of reference
This week the recommendations of the first Melbourne participatory budgeting jury were unanimously approved by Darebin City Council. The jury’s final meeting was in early August and council worked quickly to get the recommendations (Item 901 Appendix A 15...
Sep 17, 2014 | Advisory committee, Citizen committees, Community Engagement, Community Governance, Local government, People, place & governance, Terms of reference
In early September, I presented on improving the functioning of citizen committees’ at the SA Community Managers’ conference in Adelaide. The conference is for local government managers and the theme was ‘Active Citizenship’. I proposed three...
