Whitby commandeers bus in contempt for public consultation
I sincerely hope this story isn’t true: because if it is, it shows the degree of contempt that Council Leader Mike Whitby has for the people of Birmingham.
Two weeks ago a bus of council employees was scheduled to visit the Highgate area of Birmingham. The purpose was to consult local people on the Big City Plan. This didn’t happen: the bus was rescheduled at the last minute so people turned up unawares.
That is unfortunate, but in itself not scandalous. What is scandalous is that, according to Paul Dale on the Birmingham Post website, the bus was commandeered by Mr Whitby for a photo shoot.
If that’s true, it’s the the clearest signal yet that those at the top of Birmingham City Council have no interest in what their citizens have to say about this Big City Plan.
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By any stretch of the imagination this whole consultation process can only be described as a failure. 178 comments listed on the website out of a population of over 1 million is something of an embarrassment surely? Some of the comments are from people involved in the big city plan.
And in person at the Bus promotion 400 people approached over 3 days only 88 people returned the form? again not very inspiring – maybe the message is not clear or the delivery not well conceived?
A combination of a website that is difficult to navigate for most people and equally baffling in plain english content must surely be a contributory factor.
The biggest hurdle however is complacency and mistrust, most people I talk to are either unaware of what it is or after years of being ‘consulted’ with and finding no opening in such decision processes for themselves, are more than a little isolated by the usual suspects being in a perceived position of influence.
We have a real lack of civic pride in Birmingham and this is a major obstacle, certainly for the creative industries, many of whom find decreasing opportunities seem to correlate to increasing civic control over such concerns.
Whether Mr. Whitby did or did not use this as a promotional tool at the expense of dialogue with the people of Birmingham may not come to light, what is a concern is that these type of instances are so believable and go without any major voice to call to account.
If the Council and developers really want a dialogue surely they would find a way to have one or is public consultation a tick box activity at the end of the real decision making?
It’s certainly very frustrating. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, and tend to believe that people mean well but don’t manage well (I’m certainly guilty of that). But I’ve already heard ‘conspiracy’ applied to this process, and that saddens me because it’s pretty clear that the Council is oblivious to how it’s being perceived from outside, and how badly it’s damaging its own reputation through ill-conceived actions.
I don’t begrudge Mr Whitby the photo opportunity (if indeed this story proves to be true): it’s the cynical disruption of the consultation process – when surely he could in fact have capitalised on it by going to Highgate himself – that I would find so galling.
Quick update: It seems that Nicky Getgood has also blogged about this, and has even submitted a Freedom of Information request.
>178 comments listed on the website out of a population of over 1 million is something of an embarrassment surely? Some of the comments are from people involved in the big city plan.
Hi Anthony,
The Big City Plan Talk website that Michael links to is an unofficial site has only been available for just over a week — with no promotion. We’ve no idea how many comments the plan has actually got — as the council do not publish comments on thier consultation site.
Hi Jon,
Thats even better isn’t it, a public consultation where the public comments are behind closed doors!
Given the unfriendly navigation of the official site and given the signposting to the ‘unofficial’ site “Thanks to the hard work of members of Birmingham’s Social Media community, there’s now another way in which you can read and participate in the Big City Plan online discussion – visit bigcitytalk.org.uk to read a version of the Work in Progress document side-by-side with the original, and add your own comments”.Where the public is encouraged to interact by the council themselves,
the ‘public’ consultation would still very much appear to be on Big City Plan Talk website.
Despite the admirable push from those concerned with the social media developments via Twitter and other social media in an attempt to reach out to the public, I would still maintain that the numbers of comments together with the quoted number of physical responses quoted on the council website is poor.
I feel that despite these efforts there seems to be something more at play here than people not having a twitter account. There is a genuine lack of confidence in the areas I outlined above.
Unfortunately the same can be said for many of the regions civic strategies that aim so high and disappear with embarrassing quiet failure after large amounts of money have bee spent.
Public consultation needs to be far wider in it’s core discussion and needs to reflect a far greater representation. In effect it needs to be more rigorous, difficult for those concerned and remove the arms length representation. For real change they need to hear things that they really don’t want to hear about the failures of both previous and current strategy and methodology. Only then can we have a positive way forward based on meaningful dialogue.
Greater powers of public scrutiny and a more transparent system would be more healthy in a time where we really need every pound to work for the whole not the individual.
These are only my opinions - I may be idealistic, but my opinions are based on many years working, setting up businesses, networking and living in Birmingham and the same conversations are happening verbatim that I had when I started working as a freelance illustrator in 1986, the wrong people making the wrong decisions on our behalf. I hope we can get it right.
Hi Anthony,
I’m trying to hold my tongue until the consuultation officially closes on 6 February (although, bemusingly, the Council is still scheduling ‘discussion’ events for after that), but I do agree with pretty much everything you’re saying.