WE’ve GOT SOME questions…

HELP US UNDERSTAND what STRONG LOCAL DEMOCRACY means TO YOU

We are an independent Commission that has been set up to look at what democracy in Scotland might look like, whatever the result of the referendum in 2014. The Commission is chaired by Councillor David O’Neill, President of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, and we have set out its main tasks at the end of this document.

Our starting point is that we believe that local services and local accountability matter. That is why we want to begin our work by hearing your views and suggestions about what happens now, and what the future might be.

This is only our first step in listening to you. Any information that you give us now will help start the debate, but we also want this to be an ongoing conversation. Over the next few months we will be setting up different ways in which you can meet us or tell us what you think. A good way to find out about these is by signing up to our newsletter at www.localdemocracy.info and by following @localcommission on Twitter.

How to Respond

We will use the information that you give us to develop our work and explore new ideas, and so what you tell us now is really important. For that reason, we want to hear from you as quickly as possible. We are keen to hear your views by 29 November 2013, or sooner if you can. However, please let us know if you need more time.

You can complete and return this form electronically to:

You can also respond online via our website:

http://www.localdemocracy.info/call-for-evidence/

Alternatively you can post a copy of this form to:

The Commission on Strengthening Local Democracy

Verity House

19 Haymarket Yards

Edinburgh, EH12 5BH

If you are responding as an individual we would be grateful if you could also provide some other information when you give us your views. This will help us develop an overall picture of the information we have. This is optional and any information that you provide will be used anonymously and will remain strictly confidential.

If you have any queries please contact us using the above details or call us on 0131 474 9200

Respondent Information

To help us make the most of your response, please tell us about yourself and how you want us to use the information you provide. There are some questions marked * and these must be answered by all respondents, unless you are directed past this question.

Name of Organisation (if appropriate) / We are responding as individual researchers who work at the Centre for Social Informatics, part of the Institute of Informatics and Digital Innovation at Edinburgh Napier University
Names / Bruce Ryan, Peter Cruickshank
Address / Institute of Informatics and Digital Innovation
Edinburgh Napier University
Merchiston Campus
10 Colinton Road
Edinburgh
Postcode / EH10 5DT
Telephone / Bruce Ryan: 07909 504328
Peter Cruickshank 0131 455 2309
Email / Bruce Ryan:
Peter Cruickshank:
Twitter name if applicable / Bruce Ryan: @myceliumme_CC
Peter Cruickshank: @spartakan
* I am responding as: / An individual
An organisation/group
Do you consider yourself or your organisation as from or representing?
a rural area / an urban
area / an area with both urban and rural parts / don’t know /
not applicable
Would you be happy to be approached by the Commission for further discussion about your submission? / Yes
No
If you are responding as an individual:
* Do you agree to your response being made available to the public on the Commission’s web site? / Yes
No
* If you have agreed to your response being made available to the public, please tell us if we may also make your name and address available. (Please select one option only)
Yes, make my response, name and address all available
Yes, make my response available, but not my name and address
Yes, make my response and name available, but not my address
If you are responding as an individual we would be grateful if you could also provide some additional information. This is absolutely optional but it will help us get an overall picture of the information we receive. You can download this sheet here and send it to us at the same time as you return this form.
Bruce Ryan’s research interest is in the use of the internet by Scottish Community Councils. He was treasurer of St Andrews CC (Fife) and is currently minutes secretary and joint webmaster for a CC in Leith, Edinburgh.
Peter Cruickshank is a lecturer in Information Systems, researches e-participation and has a background in business, accountancy, IS Audit and information governance. Moreinformation can be found via his research page at http://www.iidi.napier.ac.uk/p.cruickshank .
The Centre for Social Informatics is carries out interdisciplinary research into the design and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that takes account of institutional and cultural contexts. We have considerable previous experience in the particular area of e-participation – that is, the application of research to the democratic process.
If you are responding as a group or organisation:
* The name and address of your organisation will be made public on the Commission’s web site. Are you content for your response to also be made available? / Yes
No
Which of the following best describes your organisation? (Please select one option only)
Community Group
Local Authority
Other public sector organisation
Third Sector organisation
Professional body / A business
A government department or agency
A social enterprise
Other (please specify)
Research organisation
Short description of the main purpose of your organisation:

Tell us what you think

We have not provided a long list of questions to answer, but we do want to hear what you have to say about some themes. Please respond to as few or as many as you wish. However, it would be helpful to keep your overall response to eight pages or less.

Please provide evidence or examples in support of what you say. This will help us understand and explore your ideas further.

1.  LOCAL DECISION MAKING: Do you think that decisions about local issues and services are made locally enough in Scotland at the moment? If not, what does deciding ‘locally’ mean to you? Please illustrate your answer with any examples from your own experience.
We have restricted our answers here to the impact and use of internet technologies to support the effectiveness of Community Councils. Our responses are based on research we have carried out since 2012 into use of internet communications by community councils (CCs). We are interested in how IT affects society – in this case, how IT can facilitate local democracy and decision-making.
We make specific responses to questions 1, 2 and 3, then offer some recommendations and comments in the response-space for question 4. We have no reason to believe that the situation has changed significantly in the 18 months since the survey was carried out but are continuing to monitor the situation: we are planning a repeat survey in the early months of 2014 and would be happy to discuss the results with you.
We are aware that CCs often have links with community organisations, which gives some evidence that existing CC areas form a worthwhile definition of ‘local’ for most purposes. For example, Strathblane CC’s (in Stirling LA) online presence is part of the StrathBlanefield local community website: http://www.strathblanefield.org.uk/communitycouncil/cchome.html. For some issues, two or more CCs would be involved but personal experience suggests that CCs can work together.
Our research found that use of the internet to support the collection of local opinions and for these to flow to decision-makers is generally poor.
You will be aware that a significant proportion (213 = 16%)* of CCs simply don’t exist. Hence there is no mechanism for local input in these areas.
Even when considering active CCs, many (498 = 36%) do not use the internet to communicate publically with citizens. While they may use email (some choose to not even do this), they have no web or social media presences enabling them to inform their communities, let alone gather community input. A further 351 (26%) have out-of-date websites. These CCs do not properly inform their citizens of their activities and so are unlikely to be gathering citizen input via the internet. That is, we found that 78% of all possible and 74% of existing community councils do not use the internet to support their roles of communication and opinion-gathering.
We did find that 307 (only 22% of all possible community councils) have up-to-date websites: even these mostly give out information but do not gather citizen input.
Hence it can be argued that the community council system, specifically set up to supply local opinions to Local Authorities (LAs), emergency and health services and similar to aid their decision-making processes, does not have the necessary IT-mediated channels. Further, if the Community Empowerment Bill passes in its current form, there will be a lack of opportunity for local opinions to reach CCs and hence aid their decision-making processes on the matters that would be devolved to them. Without good channels for communicating with citizens, CCs will not only be unable to learn what citizens want but they will also be unable to take advantage of expertise and other resources local citizens may have.
We do recognise that councillors, MPs and MSPs are automatically members of CCs in their wards and constituencies, potentially providing some linkage between CCs and higher tiers of government. However, we are concerned that information is not flowing between CCs and their citizens, and hence local opinions may not be properly reaching these links to bodies where decisions are actually made. Appropriate use of the internet though blogs or social media could add an element of transparency to this information flow.
It is worth noting that only 10 of the 32 community planning partnerships (CPPs), which join up LAs, emergency and health services, include CC representatives at board level.** So even if local opinions were reaching CCs, they are not guaranteed to reach CPPs.
References
* Ryan, B. M., & Cruickshank, P. (2012, October). Scottish Community Councils - a survey. Available from http://www.iidi.napier.ac.uk/c/publications/publicationid/13373555.
Cruickshank, P., Ryan, B., & Smith, C. (in press). Disconnected democracy? A survey of Scottish Community Councils’ online presences. Scottish Affairs.
Ryan, B. M. (2013, December). Disconnected democracy? A study of Scottish Community Councils’ online communications. MSc dissertation.
** Improvement Service. (2014). Community Planning Partnerships. Available from http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/community-planning-partnerships.
2.  LOCAL ACCOUNTABILITY: How important do you think it is for locally elected people to be responsible for decisions about local issues and services? Do you have any examples of why this is the case?
In our research mentioned earlier, we have found several further barriers to local accountability which could be overcome through appropriate use of internet technologies such as blog/news sites and social media such as Facebook:
·  Even those CCs that have up-to-date websites often do not publish agendas, so local citizens would not have notice of what is to be discussed.
·  Minutes are often published only after they have been ratified at subsequent meetings, typically a month after the original meeting. Hence local citizens are not informed of important matters by CCs until after deadlines have passed. (Typically, planning applications have 3-week consultation periods.)
·  Only 59 CC websites (9% of online presences) have specific planning sections. Hence planning matters are either not mentioned or are buried in minutes, which may be hard to find. Recent positive developments such as the creation of the Public Information Notices portal (tellmescotland.gov.uk) provide the technical capability to allow listing of all live local planning applications on a community council’s website.
Hence meaningful engagement by citizens with the planning process (one of their key consultative duties) is not currently facilitated by most CCs.
3.  LOCAL PRIORITIES: How well do you think that communities’ local priorities are accounted for in the way that national and local government works at the moment? What is effective, and if there is room for improvement, how should things change?
Our response here again centres on communication. For local citizens’ priorities to affect decision-making, communication channels between citizens and their representatives need to work and to be seen to be working. We know that there are links between higher tiers of government (Location directors [senior civil servants] work with CPPs) and between UK government/SG/LAs and CCs. But the communication links between citizens and CCs are missing.
We are sure that internet technologies – social media, blogging and mobile – will form at least part of any plan to improve communication, transparency and accountability. We believe (supported by interviews with CCs) that other communication methods cannot reach many citizens, let alone gather their opinions. Printed communications take time to prepare and are prohibitively expensive to distribute throughout CC areas, while notice-boards reach only tiny proportions of citizens (possibly a different audience from internet users – it is likely that a mix of communication channels will always be needed). In rural areas, distribution of printed information will be even more challenging – and much of Scotland is rural (Scottish Government, 2012).
As Robina Goodlad reported in 1999, CCs can be effective in both influencing (and improving) LA decisions (Goodlad et al, 1999, pp61-63). This requires LAs and other bodies to regard CCs as assets, not as competitors or worthless, unrepresentative impediments (Goodlad et al, 1999, p59).
Our point is that the internet can provide means for transparently linking bodies such as LAs and CCs, so long as CCs are taken seriously. This potential would also extend to linking CCs with CPPs and their stakeholder bodies (emergency and health services etc).
References
Scottish Government. (2012, August 21). Scottish Government 6-fold Urban/Rural Classification, 2011-2012. Available from http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/About/Methodology/UrbanRuralClassification/Urban-Rural-Classification-2011-12/6-foldUrban-Rural-2011-2012.