Phil Swann

The urgency of Sonia Busso’s call for councils to develop participatory governance arrangements is evident in her recent INLOGOV policy paper[1], The Participatory Council. Bussu recognises that politicians can enable or block this development and argues that progress can be impeded if the council as an institution is not prepared for meaningful participation. I argue in this blog that an equally important precondition of action is that political parties are engaged in participatory processes, reflecting their roles in both councils and wider civic society.

The Participatory Party should sit alongside the Participatory Council.

Bussu sets out a convincing set of recommendations to advance inclusive participation including developing the role of boundary spanners, building on existing community assets and resources, and adopting an intersectional approach to engage marginalised voices.

She recognises the part that political parties played in two of the five case she refers to: the introduction of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre in Brazil; and the radical widening of the participatory infrastructure and processes in Barcelona. A third case, the deployment of citizens’ assemblies in the London Borough of Camden, was initiated by the then council leader Georgia Gould[2] following her recognition of the councils’ failure to listen to the residents of tower blocks in the borough before the tragic Grenfell Fire.

Bussu distinguishes between “disjointed events vulnerable to the political cycle” and “coherent processes embedded in day-to-day policymaking”, an ambition which is reflected in Gould’s final leader’s annual report in which she claimed the council was “getting on with a radical shift in power that is seeing democratic renewal led from the bottom up”.

In my view, however.  more attention needs to be paid to how political parties can play bigger roles both in enriching civic society and in embedding participatory process in the way that Bussu seeks. This is particularly important at a time when populist parties are opting for simplistic solutions rather than engaging with the hard graft of participatory policymaking.

Gould, for example, in a lecture in 2022 called for a move beyond a transactional model of public services. Demanding the abandonment of traditional structures and hierarchies and a recognition of the power of communities and the ability of residents to change their lives, she warned that “services that don’t have a connection to communities or an understanding of their needs can be de-humanising, paternalistic and create a transactional model of public services that cannot make lives better in the longer term.”

In terms of the contribution of politicians and political parties to this, there are three key lessons from the experience of three of Gould’s predecessors: Herbert Morrison, leader of the London County Council and dynamo of Atlee’s post-war government; Richard Crossman, Minister for Housing and Local Government in Harold Wilson’s first cabinet; and David Blunkett, leader of Sheffield and holder of three cabinet posts in Tony Blair’s government.

First, the potential for exploiting the contribution of political parties as an important feature of the wider civic society. Morrison, for example, was clear that it was impossible to understand local government without understanding how political parties worked. It was “out of the clash of opinion and principle between the parties” that progress was made. For Crossman vibrant local government hinged on overcoming public apathy and that political parties had the potential to do that so long as party membership provided substantive opportunities to influence party policy. Writing when he was leader of the Labour Group on Oxford City Council in 1939 he said: democracy inside our parties is as valuable a part of our liberties as the right of voting at elections.”

Blunkett believed that the value of local politics was not confined to its legal powers, but to its ability to extend and develop democracy enabling the emergence of new social movements. During the period when he was leader of Sheffield, Blunkett argued that “if we can stimulate the community action that brings people into the [Labour] party and gets them to relate their community problems to a sense of political purpose, then we have begun to change society.”

Second, the value of engagement beyond the council and the party. Towards the end of his period as a leading local politician Blunkett warned that town halls could feel “impossibly remote and anonymous”. Reflecting on the state of local government in 2023, he said council leaders should do more than run their authority: they should see the council as a mechanism for fully engaging local people. Morrison, in his reflections on his period as leader of the LCC in the 1930s, came to a similar conclusion: “It was important that councillors and aldermen, once elected and appointed, should still move among the people they represented. They should be with and for the people, not above them.”

Finally, the key link between local government and wider civic society. Crossman was clear that “the real basis of successful political democracy is not to be found in politics at all, but below the surface in the organisation of a whole network of popular interests”. He argued that the future of the Labour party depended on not on the competence of its leaders and its electoral success, but also on the creation of “new organisations for the conquest of liberties yet unwon.” Blunkett was equally honest about the need for local politicians to avoid paternalism. Writing in 2002, when he was Home Secretary, Blunkett described how every since his first experience of canvassing in his council ward he had been “keen to inform and involve as many residents of Sheffield and its environs as possible in the aims and decision-making of the council.”

Bussu is right to stress that participatory governance requires sustained political commitment and is vulnerable to political change. The work of Gould and politicians such as Morrison, Crossman and Blunkett has created the foundations on which to build a participatory party. And Andy Burnham’s statements about how he intends to lead the Labour Party and listen to communities suggests that now is a good time to do so.

Phil Swann is studying for a PhD on the contribution of politicians to central-local government relations at the University of Birmingham.

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[1] The Participatory Council http://epapers.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/4443/

[2] Now an MP and minister