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Keeping their public informed, onside and sympathetic is a major challenge for councils as they announce a stream of bad news on cuts and increases in charges. Jamie Hailstone looks at how some councils have been using the opportunity to engage with residents. There is an old adage in the newspaper industry that there is no news like bad news, and that good news is not news at all. The last few months have seen a succession of ‘bad news' stories as councils unveil plans to cut jobs and shed services, as the age of austerity takes hold. But for some local authorities, this represents a chance to engage with residents in a discussion about what services they should provide and, in some cases, talk about the very future of local government itself. The first council in the north-east of England to go public about how the cuts could impact public services was Darlington Council. Darlington's chief executive, Ada Burns, says the authority went out to consultation on a package which included 500 redundancies and an overall cut to the council's annual budget of £13m. The council produced a special edition of its Town Crier magazine – which outlined all the proposals, Internet forums, and a number of discussion events. ‘There is a very broad understanding of the council's position,' Ms Burns tells The MJ. ‘We do not want to be in this place, but we must do it with as much focus on our principles. There has been a lot of sympathy for our position – and a lot of concern and anxiety about individual proposals and what they will mean for the quality of life in Darlington.' The plans include closing a regional theatre and bowling greens, an end to all major seasonal events, and cutting the anti-social behaviour team to the statutory minimum. ‘We've had people engage very constructively in thinking about alternatives to running services,' she adds. ‘One of the proposals that has drawn the most interest is to sell our theatre and withdraw the subsidy for our arts centre. There's a very active group of 150 people thinking about alternative ways of keeping it going.' £200,000 Cost of average house in Kent But, she says she is concerned about whether voluntary groups could take over the running of some services in what will be a matter of months. Darlington's cabinet will formally propose their budget in January, and there will be another round of consultations before a final decision in March. ‘We have already got a shared services partnership with Stockton-on-Tees Council, as well as other arrangements across the Tees Valley,' she says. ‘We are accelerating those discussions. I guess one of the plus points will be opportunities to make more savings, but one of the risks will be the dilution of local members to exercise local discretion. ‘Councils can share chief executives and senior management teams – and that will save some money – but it's only when there are standardised processes across two or three authorities that they will start to realize big cash savings.' Kent CC recently launched its ‘Your voice, your services campaign', which asks residents to identify the services they really value. The council's cabinet member for corporate support services and performance management, Cllr Roger Gough, says the campaign wants to give residents a sense of perspective about local authority services. ‘We put a lot of emphasis on giving people a sense of what the numbers involved are,' says Cllr Gough. ‘We put things in context. We related everything to the average house price in Kent, which is £200,000, and asked what would people pay for. ‘So, £200,000 would pay to resurface one mile of road, or it would pay for a secondary school for two-and-a-half weeks. It made it more real to people.' Kent CC has also published all invoices above £500 for environment, highways and waste online, and plans to have all expenditure over that amount publicly available soon. £200,000 Cost of paying for a secondary school in Kent for two-and-a-half weeks The council's campaign has also included publishing the salary details, expenses and job descriptions of all its senior managers online, and setting up a special e-mail address, where residents can contact them specifically about spending cuts – mail to spending@kent.gov.uk ‘I think people's responses have been fairly constructive,' says Cllr Gough. ‘People have asked about whether we could just cut senior pay and proposals such as that, but other people are generally trying to respond in a way which recognises the dilemmas involved. ‘For us, it is part of a wider dialogue with the people we represent – sharing some sense of responsibility,' he adds. For Cllr Nicholas True, the leader of Richmond LBC, the budget cuts offer not just a chance to consult with residents, but turn the relationship between the elected and the electorate upside down. ‘I think there is bit of a crisis in confidence between the public and politicians, and a lot of this comes from an era of politicians not bothering to consult at all,' says Cllr True. The London borough scrapped its Arcadia magazine last summer, and instead opted to send out a six-page questionnaire to all 80,000 homes, to find out what residents think about a wide range of issues. ‘What we've done is scrapped the downward communication,' says Cllr True. ‘People are interested in details. They do understand that council decisions matter. I think we should have more confidence and give people a chance. It must be good for democracy.' £200,000 Cost of resurfacing a mile of road One of the key parts of the council's consultation programme was a three-day exhibition of community displays, which was attended by around 800 people. Cllr True says the inspiration for this was the ‘barefoot' conferences of the 1960s, when people were just invited to come along and give their views, with no preconceptions. ‘I've been getting a lot of e-mails from people saying they didn't think anybody would do this. ‘I don't mind if somebody comes and shouts at me at a public meeting. When I was young, I did a bit of marching on the street. It does show that people have a view about little things. I was first elected to a council in 1986,' he adds. ‘We all get local government-itis. We think it is complicated, and some of it is. But I think that a lot of government is more simple than we make it. ‘We have this assumption that people will not understand the questions, but they are prepared to face up to difficult issues.'

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WHITEHALL

Keeping the public onside in a crisis

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