The desire for local people to ‘get involved' with their council is often a sign of failure rather than success, as implied in the White Paper, according to Ben Page, managing director of Ipsos -MORI. In an article in the MJ this week and on Localgov.co.uk, Mr Page says: ‘Time and again in our work for local councils, we see people are more likely to want to get involved where they are least satisfied with local services – because things are so bad they feel they need to.' He claims many of the suggestions in the empowerment White Paper are things councils have been ‘doing for some time' and it is difficult to prove that empowerment improves local government.'
