This is a further report from the Popular Participation in Constitutional Reform (PPCR) 'webinar', which openDemocracy participated in, along with Lexis Nexis, Mischon de Reya and Unlock Democracy. You can watch the webinar in full here.
Alexandra Runswick (London, Unlock Democracy): On Friday Jon Bright and Anthony Barnett asked: how hard a task is the Citizens' Summit on a British Statement of Values? Engaging citizens is certainly not easy. As Dr Mendolsohn said at the PPCR webinar:
never underestimate how difficult it is to get people's attention and how disinterested the media are
Consultation is almost a dirty word in some circles, because too many people have been involved in so called 'consultations' where the intended outcome has been clear from the start. If the Citizens Summit is just another glorified focus group then it will be derided as yet another gimmick and further fuel disillusionment with politics and politicians. Stephen Hesford MP, Michael Wills' PPS, was at great pains at the seminar to assure us that the process is genuine - but with so little detail known at the moment about what the process will be, other than clichéd generalities, it is hard to know for sure.
One of the reasons for organising the seminar was to shift the debate from whether to involve citizens in constitutional reform to how to involve citizens. Dr Mathew Mendohlson and Prof Brice Dickson both gave detailed practical accounts of innovative citizens engagement exercises, and explored what worked and more importantly what didn't. So what did we learn - and were the government listening?
Dr Mendohlson highlighted three ‘success factors' that are essential for any citizen engagement process:
the process has to be independent of government;
there has to be a clearly defined outcome - in Ontario's case it was a referendum on the Citizens' Assembly recommendation;
the subject has to be chosen well.
I would add a fourth success factor which is that the citizens involved have to have the power to actually do something. This was certainly the case in Ontario where they made recommendations that were then put to a referendum. Although the referendum did not ratify the Assembly's recommendation, people engaging with the process had a clear understanding of why they should give up every other weekend for a period of months.
It's difficult to see at the moment what the equivalent rationale in the UK would be. Participants in the Citizens' Summit will be able to recommend to Parliament what a British Statement of Values should contain - but what is the outcome? While the debates on Our Kingdom show that there are people keen to debate what it means to be British, or to assert that they do not feel British but English, Scottish, Welsh and a myriad of other identities, deliberative processes that discuss general values can be difficult. The fact that no-one seems to be sure what the proposed statement of values is actually for only increases the confusion, and makes it less likely that the public will buy into the process.
One of the issues raised at the seminar was the fact that the process is being called a British statement of values - when it will also apply to Northern Ireland and therefore in reality it will be a United Kingdom statement of values. The use of such provocative language, in a community that is still emerging from a protracted and often tense peace process, is not an auspicious start. Sidelining the innovative citizen engagement process that has been taking place in Northern Ireland over a number of years exacerbates this problem.
The government has a huge task ahead of it to make the Citizens Summit a success, there were certainly lessons that they can learnt from both Canada and Northern Ireland but will they? Peter Thompson, Head of the Governance of Britain programme, engaged thoughtfully with the issues raised - but with politicians clinging on to the security blanket of parliamentary sovereignty as a reason for not really letting go of the process, the omens are not good.
